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BS: The Cost of Newspapers
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Subject: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Joe Offer Date: 10 Oct 22 - 12:53 AM I have been a subscriber to McClatchy's Fresno Bee and Sacramento Bee since I moved to Fresno in 1976 and then to Sacramento in 1980. James McClatchy founded the Sacramento Bee in 1857, and it has been a good newspaper ever since. The corporation bought Knight-Ridder newspapers in 2006. I think that was more than they could afford, so they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 2020. In July 2020, the Chatham Asset Management hedge fund won an auction and purchased McClatchy for $312 million (Chatham also owns the National Enquirer). So far, the newspaper's editorial policy hasn't changed, so I continue to read the Bee. I was determined to continue supporting a local newspaper, so I paid $90 a month for home delivery. But then a little over a year ago, the Bee stopped delivering to my rural area, and converted me to an online subscription. I fould that I could buy the Sunday Bee for a buck at the Dollar Store, so I browsed the newspaper online during the week and bought the print version for a buck on Sundays. Then the Bee wouldn't distribute through the Dollar Store and I had to buy it at the grocery store for $4.00. And then I bought the Sunday paper at the grocery store this morning and found that the price had jumped to $5.99. With tax, that came to almost $6.50. I guess I have to stop now and read my newspaper online, but it's such a shame. What are the rest of you paying for newspapers? I admit that's it's nice to get reasonably-priced digital subscriptions to the New York Times and the Guardian at a reasonable price, but I miss my local paper. Some of you may know that I worked for Debby McClatchy as a kitchen manager for about ten years, and that I remastered all of her recordings. Debby's father was disinherited by the newspaper family because he married a "hillbilly" - but he did all right. But as a result, Debby is a normal person and not Patty Hearst. I'll keep my friendship with Debby, but I guess it's time to end my relationship with McClatchy's Bee, which I've read since 1976. I'll keep my online subscription, but I never seem to get around to reading it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Jon Freeman Date: 10 Oct 22 - 10:23 AM ”What are the rest of you paying for newspapers?” Dad’s the only one who gets papers here. He gets: The i: £0.70 weekdays/ £1.30 Saturday Eastern Dailly Press (a regional paper): £1.10 weekdays/ £2.00 Saturdays. He doesn’t get a Sunday paper. I think the newsagent charges a bit under £5 for his weekly deliveries. Every now and then, dad thinks about stopping getting the EDP but then finds some reason (e.g. perhaps some Norwich City FC article) to keep it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Stilly River Sage Date: 10 Oct 22 - 10:45 AM The Washington Post just doubled its online subscription cost from $4 to $8 (they sent an email saying it was going up to $12 and I bet they got quick pushback - the next day they corrected it to $8). The Dallas Morning News was going to double its price and when I called to cancel they offered the same old price, just at a monthly rate instead of yearly. The New York Times is $25 a month but I share my gift subscriptions (two of them) with a couple of friends, so though I pay the whole thing it averages out to $8 a subscription, online only. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Senoufou Date: 10 Oct 22 - 01:21 PM I pay our neighbour £10 per week, as she delivers newspapers all over the place on her rounds. She brings me my Daily Mail/Sunday Mail every day. I think that's quite reasonable, as the puzzles keep me amused. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Steve Shaw Date: 10 Oct 22 - 01:28 PM I have a digital subscription to the Guardian. I think it's about twelve quid a month. I've been getting the free morning briefing from the NYT for a good while. Because I subscribe to the Guardian I get full access to their website. That's my main resort these days. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 10 Oct 22 - 05:48 PM Here in the land of Oz my local paper is probably kept on paper by the actions of several large advertisers which pay for 8 or more pages of advertising each, often daily. It's very easy to turn past them muttering thankyou when I remember, as I don't need furniture/whitegoods/computer stuff etc The Sydney Morning Herald is Australia's oldest newspaper & long may it continue on paper! What my favourite cartoonist calls The Daily Rupert might outsell it, but who wants to read Murdoch's version of "news" I also like my paper for it's puzzles, besides it's website is behind a paywall & why should I access that cos I love the paper version. I'm often the only person not reading a smartarse (smartass for our US friends) phone on the train or bus. the paper costs $4 on weekdays & $5 on weekends (a Big Mac costs $6.60, I just looked that up!) sandra my other newspaper is the Guardian website. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Rapparee Date: 10 Oct 22 - 10:03 PM Our local paper, the Idaho State About two years ago it was purchased by the Adams Publishing Group, who seem to own all of the papers around here. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 11 Oct 22 - 04:35 AM Murdoch's News Ltd bought up all (probably a slight exaggeration) regional & local papers some years back. So now we have very few local papers which once had articles about the local school & it's fete, or the local kid's/adult's sport & articles about local heroes who clean up parks, etc. All we get is firewalled national stuff. My local Murdoch paper covers Sydney's posh Eastern Suburbs, & we get an article about about why some local likes living where they do, their favourite cafe/restaurant/supermarket/farmers market/gym/park ... then we also get lots of real estate ads, & one local section - local tradesmen! No crosswords, no local what's on, no Letters to the editor. The paper probably has good circulation numbers cos the unopened papers go straight into the recycling. sandra |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Rapparee Date: 12 Oct 22 - 07:25 PM I mourn the slow death of newspapers. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: JennieG Date: 13 Oct 22 - 06:42 PM Our local rag is published every day except Sunday, but we only buy Saturday's paper. Can't read it online because of a paywall, but we can read the headlines and classifieds....I like to check that we aren't in the death/funeral notices. Saturday's now costs $3.00. This isn't the Big Smoke, it's a country town, so our paper is still a reasonable cost - even though a lot of the content is recycled and syndicated from the parent company, we still get quite a bit of local news. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Donuel Date: 13 Oct 22 - 06:58 PM Federal employees often get newspaper subscriptions for free. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Neil D Date: 16 Oct 22 - 08:35 PM Rapparee's disparaging nickname for his local paper reminds me of the 3 newspapers we took when I was a kid, all having an insulting sobriquet: The Canton Repository = The Suppository The Akron Beacon Journal = The Reekin' Urinal The Cleveland Plain Dealer = The Pain Dealer |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Stilly River Sage Date: 16 Oct 22 - 11:11 PM The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is frequently referred to as the Startlegram. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 17 Oct 22 - 02:07 AM The cartoonist who refers to The Daily Rupert also lists The Sydney Rupert, The Melbourne Rupert, The Brisbane Rupert & The National Rupert. The Daily Telegraph (aka Sydney Rupert) has a much older common name, The Telecrap. sandra |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 17 Oct 22 - 10:03 AM > The Daily Rupert [etc] "Rupert" always reminds me of the Rupert Bear cartoons, which used to be the semantic-content section of the Daily Express in the UK. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Steve Shaw Date: 17 Oct 22 - 10:18 AM Ever since the Sun newspaper peddled dreadful lies about the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, involving the deaths of 97 Liverpool fans, most Liverpool newsagents have refused to sell the paper and few Merseysiders will take the paper to this day, even if they are given it for free. The paper has long been owned by, guess who, Rupert Murdoch. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 17 Oct 22 - 05:06 PM MarJoC - Rupert cartoons, what memories. I have a well used copy of this book! published 1953, the owner coloured the images, but did not cut out the figures. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 18 Oct 22 - 02:30 PM We never got the Express. What I was given, at the formative age in question, was Rupert annuals , which introduced me to origami. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Mr Red Date: 24 Oct 22 - 03:23 AM New Scientist. The are happy to print retractions when factually wrong. And they quote their sources. And the nearest they get to being political is over climate change. In fact they rarely publish anything about politicians outside of that. Their cartoons are not as numerous (2) but, they are funny, maybe not to everyone but then banana skins are always unfunny when you can see the mechanism of jokes churning. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Stilly River Sage Date: 24 Oct 22 - 10:43 AM New Scientist is, I think, the one that gives you a teaser paragraph and then tells you you must pay to read. I usually can get enough information from their first paragraph to track down the original research. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Mr Red Date: 27 Oct 22 - 03:13 AM I get the paper version read it every week, from 2013 - I read to send me to sleep, and a week is too short. Hence still catching up! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 27 Oct 22 - 03:49 AM the library where I worked from 73 to 89 got New Scientist, & I loved the comic strip - Grimbledon Down ...set in a fictitious UK government research laboratory, satirising the secret Porton Down chemical and biological warfare establishment. (New Scientist wanted 'some straight talking about the scope and purpose of research on Porton Down'.[1]) Grimbledon Down's scientists engaged in all sorts of questionable research, such as the production of antipornography – grossly disgusting pornographic films which were intended to turn off the audience's sexual drive and thus save the world from catastrophic overpopulation. Another frequent feature was attempts to create or distribute Nu-Food, an artificial foodstuff made with processed human waste. This is the only Grimbledon Down strip I can find online, however there are lots of other Bill Tidy cartoons, so I had fun looking thru them |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Charmion Date: 27 Oct 22 - 06:44 AM In Stratford (Ontario), our barely surviving local paper is called the Beacon-Herald — or the Bleak and Horrible. Kingston, Ontario’s Whig-Standard is not actually bad, but generally known nevertheless as the Sub-Standard. I don’t know how either of them survives in a market dominated by big-city corporate media giants like the Globe and Mail, the National Post and the Toronto Star. I stopped taking a paper newspaper two years ago, after my husband died. Now I read them on line, no longer having Edmund to share them with, or any need for disposable table-covering to counter his boot-polishing habits. I read the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star every day through an ‘e-paper” application that reproduces the print version on my iPad. I also read the New York Times, the New Yorker, and occasionally the Guardian and a Canadian news magazine called L’Actualité. This habit costs me about Cdn$75.00 per month, which I consider good value. I don’t watch network television or listen to talk radio, so the Internet versions of the print media are my primary source of information about pretty well everything that happens in the world outside Stratford. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Bill D Date: 30 Oct 22 - 11:45 AM After several years of daring the Washington Post to charge me full price for digital..(I 'cancelled', then they let me keep the introductory price)... I finally let them renew at full price. For many, many years I subscribed to local print newspapers, beginning with The Wichita Eagle in my home town. (I delivered it for several years in the 50s). Now they are online at Kansas.com, and won't even let me read headlines without subscribing. So... I pay for the digital Washington Post, and get a basic rundown of the world's news at refdesk.com and can sort thru sources from all over the world. I has a section of online papers down the right hand column called "USA/World Newspapers" sorted by region, country & US states. Many of the online papers are free... and even the ones in local languages can be often be translated by Google. I am of two minds about the demise of newspapers in print.. it's sad to see so many local papers unable to survive, but it does save a lot of trees, my floor is not ankle-deep in unread papers, and digital can be updated instantly. (RefDesk refreshes constantly) Anyone want a copy of the last two copies of The Washington Star from 1981? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Star...or the first printing of USA Today? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Stilly River Sage Date: 30 Oct 22 - 11:57 AM Fixed that link to Refdesk. Take a look and see if that's what you intended. I'm about to switch over from the Dallas paper to the Fort Worth paper. I used to get the FW one delivered on paper, but as you say, the unread papers piled up while I read it online. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Cost of Newspapers From: Bill D Date: 30 Oct 22 - 11:58 AM Yes... thanks. I should have checked first. |
