[Husker] Journal-Star to start charging for website

[Lynette Tillner]

My brother and I recently had this conversation. Larry is a journalist. He said the newspapers got themselves in this mess. And they did to some extent. In the early days of the World Wide Web (remember calling it THAT?), giving free access to information is what the techies did. Then commercialism came in - added banners, ads and all kinds of extra clicks we all hate. Businesses need to make money to stay in business. The cost of providing news, is more than just the paper, ink, and press time. It's about journalism and photojournalists, etc. It's a tough business, always has been in some ways, and it's dying, especially in truly small towns, where we live news can be hard to find now a days and there is a market for that. Everyone seems to have national news. I want the news in my home town and towns I care about, not just news of "national" interest as determined by the big media types. 

I'll pay a reasonable fee for what I want to read. Now, does that mean I'll pay to read Husker news in the LJS, OWH and other Nebraska papers? Maybe one or two, but not all. And if someone will tell me the same accurately reported and fairly stated information for free (like on a Facebook page, blog, etc) well, I'll take free over pay any day, my Mama didn't raise no dummy! 

This is one of those, everyone needs to go to the pay model or it's gonna hurt those that do and still not necessarily benefit those that don't kind of situations! Also, finding the "reasonable" price might be an issue as well. I hate the self renewing subscriptions - I can never remember what I did, my husband complains about the automatic withdrawals from the checking or credit card accounts and then it's a real hassle to cancel the subscription! To avoid the family argument, I usually just don't go there; preferring to get my Husker news for free however I can. 

 
Lynette (Tillner) Peavey
ltillner at yahoo.com


________________________________
 From: Mike Nolan <nolan at tssi.com>
To: Richard Alloway <ralloway1 at unl.edu> 
Cc: "husker at tssi.com" <husker at tssi.com> 
Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2012 5:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Husker] Journal-Star to start charging for website
 
> And my understanding is up to ten articles a month will be free here before=
>  the charges kick in.  Print subscribers will get a discounted rate for onl=
> ine subscriptions.

Fine.  If they want to fully commercialize their site (Lee Enterprises
recently went through a planned bankruptcy, after all, so NOT GOING
BROKE AGAIN is important to them), then they can pay people, including
the Husker List, to bring traffic to their site.
--
Mike Nolan

_______________________________________________
husker site list
husker at tssi.com
http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/husker