Advance Publications Beg-a-thon

I've seen some of that sort of chirping on the Facebook group dedicated to our paper's demise. The "They're cutting it down to three days but keeping the subscription price the same!?" crowd.
The guy who runs that page is also an advocate/attack dog for the shitty website that has sprung up as our primary local competition, which is a whole other annoyance. The website is taking shots at our business both on their own and through that Facebook page to try to poach advertisers from us.

Our publisher said they're trying to make people whole by extending their subscriptions. Like since they were supposed to get 20 papers this month then we'll give them an extra month free or something like that. FWIW, she said we'd only had a couple of cancellations as of yesterday, but this is still the first week we've cut back so the readers might not have realized it yet.

 

I wish more papers had a fee for article charge option. I'm not going to buy a subscription to a paper to like read one article about an NFL draft prospect (just an example) I see a link to on social media, but if they'd let me do it for 50 cents I'd happily pay.

 

No offense @Batman but I think it is pretty shitty business and "the suits" think tripling the price while not improving the product rather probably cutting people etc. to make up for the people who will inevitably not purchase the paper will do it lol.

Also it is annoying the begging because the cheap subscriptions which continue to go down as the product continues to get worse....Save local journalism as we continue to cut journalists. Like my $5 or $10 subscription is going to make a difference when ads are bringing in the $$$ and no one is advertising in papers.

 

The suits can actually charge whatever they want for subscriptions now because the only people subscribing will never give up their morning paper. They are old people who can't live without it. No matter the cost they'll buy it. At the same time, NOBODY besides the 60-80 crowd will subscribe to a newspaper. Nobody. The suits took care of that years ago. Younger people know a ripoff when they see it. They don't need newspapers.

 

All they need are TikTok, Instagram and Discord.

 

The only organization that has shit on, taken for granted and abused its most loyal supporters more than newspapers in the past 20 years is the Democratic Party.

 

The tripling of our price is being done in conjunction with an effort to beef up the paper a bit. Instead of 8-10 pages that we were normally having, we're now going for 12 or 14, maybe as many as 16 depending on the day.

 

Star Ledger/nj.com updated its plea for website readers to subscribe. Notice how the editor doesn't state how many new subscribers have signed up since this beg-a-thin started? Also, the person featured in the photo accompanying this piece, Politi, is a supposed sports columnist.
Journalism needs your support to survive and thrive. Please consider these reasons why we need your subscription.

 

The worst thing they could do is reveal how many new subscribers they actually have.

 

Star Ledger/nj.com tout local sports coverage as reason to subscribe:
Our incredible coverage of high school sports needs your support. Here’s how you can help us today.

 

Yeah, it looks like they are rotating through different journalists each week of the Beg-A-Thon. I noticed another outlet switched to a sportswriter for this week's pitch.

"I want to keep telling your stories ... We hope you'll sign up so we can keep working for you."

 

I have mixed emotions in reporters helping out the suits in begging for subscriptions. Again, these are the people responsible for so many cruel decisions regarding friends/coworkers. And with the decimation of the product, it's easy to see why people don't want to subscribe to the local paper. In no way is it worth the price.