Would you subscribe?

Cable TV was one of the first things I axed when I was trying to save money. I don't miss it. But, I still pay for the cable modem and can watch quite a bit online legitly.

I've recently been contemplating whether to subscribe to a paper or not, after moving back to the Phoenix area (The AZ Republic's no Post, but it's not a horrid rag).

At first, my inclination was not to. To save some extra cash, to avoid putting another subscription in Gannett's pocket, because I can "get it for free" online.

But, y'know? I miss it. I don't read the paper online. I read a few selected stories, which I don't feel I absorb nearly as well as if I went through them in print. The Internet is superior as a delivery mechanism in many ways, but at least for me there's nothing that can quite replace sitting down and going through the paper. I still skim, but I inevitably come across something in the Nation or Business or Sports section I would never seek out on my own online that makes me pause. I think you can come away from even the most mediocre daily rag basically informed and, for me, skipping around online doesn't accomplish that nearly as well or as easily.

Maybe I'm a prematurely old fart at the age of 26. Maybe I just miss the tactile feeling of newsprint in the morning. Whatever the case, I'm subscribing.

 

Interesting philosophy: Give away the print addition to drive up circulation numbers, therefore driving up ad costs.

Edit: btw, I don't have cable either, tho I do spring for cable Internet.

 

WFW.

 

I'm too aggravated with the guy who delivers our paper in my neighborhood to renew.

The f*cker kept getting off the driveway and running through the grass in front of my shotgun shack. Jackass.

I'm actually getting ready to subscribe to Gannett's hot mess outta Jackson, for maybe six months, to get a better feel for what readers here are getting from their early edition. Plus, I hate hate hate the CL's Web site since it was pulled into Mother Gannett's latest template.

 

I'm having a hard enough time reading that sentence with the proper italics and bold tones in my head.

 

Touche. My formatting enthusiasm perhaps got the better of me, as I suspect trying to verbally emphasize both within one sentence would sound like a Seinfeld joke. Another beauty of newsprint. The only things that scream at you are the heds.

 

For $2 a month, I get a paper delivered, which goes straight into the recycle bin. I proof all of sports and most of news five nights per week, so I know what's in it. I've read the stories. For the days I don't do this, I just read it online. I started this a few years ago, and I don't miss reading a paper edition. Whenever I can get out of this business, that likely won't change. People want free shit so they can buy other shit. I'm no different.

 

I subscribe to both of the major papers in my area, even though I'm no longer employed in the newspaper industry. Actually, I spend a lot more time reading the paper now that I'm unemployed.

Got me thinking: Maybe all the unemployment in the country is just what the newspaper industry needs!

 

False.

Unemployed means no money to buy a paper. And they can go to the library to use the Internet for free to search jobs.

 

When I go back to grad school in the fall, the first thing to go will be my cable TV. The second will be my newspaper and my magazine subscriptions.

 

Guess I should have used the blue font, huh?

 

In answer to your question, if I didn't work for a newspaper in my hometown yes I would subscribe.

On this other topic ... Our shop tried to pressure people into subscribing at one point using that logic. I couldn't see donating money out of my pocket to the company when I worked so much unpaid overtime and it would just be a struggle getting somebody to take the paper off my porch when I traveled so much for the company. So I told them to go fuck themselves. I did offer to get a subscription and donate it to a retirement home but they didn't go for that. It probably wouldn't have counted on their circulation lists.