Should you subscribe to your own publication?

My metro charges $5.50 a month for employees to suscribe. That is as cheap as they can make it and still count it towards circulation.
My friend, who works in circulation there, says that of the 300 or so newsroom staffers, only about 100 subscribe.
The paycheck deduction, pre-tax, was roughly $2.50, and since it came before taxes, it actually saved people money to subscribe. He also said anyone who says they can't afford 19 cents a day to buy their own product is a liar and should be fired.
I tend to agree.

 

Pulling the paper out of the plastic wrap on my driveway never gets old.

The day it does, I will consider myself finished in this business.

 

I work earlier now, so I read the paper throughout the day at work (and when working out). We usually subscribe, for the tactile pleasures of finding stories I didn't edit and for the coupons and circulars. It seems cheesy to take inserts that have fallen from the loading dock.

 

My opinion has changed over the years. When I was at my first paper, where I was counting pennies and the standard annual raise was a quarter, I read the paper at the office. Buying a subscription wasn't an option.

Now I'm older and gladly pay a discounted rate for my paper. I like getting it and in the long run it's good for an employee to buy their own product ... if for no other reason than to help my paper's circulation rates and so I don't have to drive in to the office on Sundays.

But I don't judge people who don't cuz I've been there. I've also been at a paper I hated but I didn't have to make the decision because they provided the paper for free (though I'm sure it showed up as a paid subscriber).

 

My paper offered employees 50% off to subscribe, so I did, for a while. Then our deadlines changed and the edition I got was the middle one of our three editions, since sports scores were missing I used that as my excuse to cancel (hoping management would get the picture that sports matters to subscribers).

A month or two later I caught wind of a promotion that the paper was doing in my town to subscribe for 74 cents a week (which was less than the employee rate), for as long as you wanted the paper, so I took it and stayed a subscriber for a few months until they screwed up my billing, so I went into the circulation department and cancelled.

Started the subscription again with the same promotion and everything was going fine until it came time to get married. My wedding was around the same time the paper was moving its printing off-site and switching to all motor-routes from teen carriers. Although I put in to have the paper stopped from the day before my wedding until I got back from the honeymoon, the paper kept coming. Evidentally the carrier for my route got changed the day after the stop was supposed to go into effect and they didn't tell the new carrier (thankfully the pet-sitter brought the papers in). A week later they switched me from an office paid account at the promotional rate to a carrier-collected account at full-price. I cancelled and haven't gone back since. They also haven't made any attempt to contact me about returning as a subscriber.

 

Our circulation department tried having a promotion for all employees of the paper -- whomever could sell the most subscriptions at a discounted rate got a prize. Very few of us in sports participated, taking the attitude "why should we do their job in addition to ours?"

 

They tried to do this at my last paper, but everyone in sports refused.

Also, both papers I've worked at give you the paper for free.

 

We get ours for free, home delivered. I try to read it front-to-back every morning.

At my previous job (same chain), I grabbed a paper at work and had my free delivery go to a friend's house.

I get the closest major metro delivered on Sunday because I enjoy reading a big-ass Sunday paper (our's isn't). I also enjoy laughing at the columnist, who some on this board are ga-ga about. He's an excellent writer, but he's consistently so far off-target when trying to write analysis pieces about the state universities, it's incredible how little he actually knows.

 

Call me old-fashioned, but nothing beats getting up early and getting the paper out of the driveway and then reading the entire thing. Or at least most of it. On nights I stay late and bring a first edition home with me, I read it when I get home and then still get the paper out of the driveway the next morning and skim it for changes between editions. We pay half-price through payroll deduction and I'll subscribe to a newspaper as long as I live. Can't help it.
I can't make my guys subscribe, but I strongly encourage everyone to read the entire paper. Nothing pisses me off more than to hear someone who works here say they don't read it. If we don't read it, why should we expect our customers to read it?

 

It may sound gay, but I love opening the door in the morning and finding the paper on the porch. We don't get the paper free, but for less than $1 a week, for all seven days, you can't beat it. I'm paying less for seven days than I did for S/S when I worked somewhere else.

The only downside is sometimes the carrier scares the shit out of me at 4 in the morning when the paper slams against the screen door.

If any NY Times people are around, what is the employee rate there. I know it's $11 in the sticks, but Manhattan cover price has to be cheaper, right?