I have been a subscriber to The Baltimore Sun, a seven-day-a-week print subscriber, for thirty-seven years, since I began working on its copy desk, and I have begun to wonder what the point is.
Since The Sun publishes online first, I have already seen its stories the day before, sometimes several days before, they appear in the print edition. And I will also have seen the Associated Press and New York Times articles The Sun picks up as well. So I am essentially paying for a print newspaper to read the "Ask Amy" column and the comic strips. (Yes, they're in the online edition as well, but there is something just wrong about reading a comic strip on an iPad.)
Beyond that, the quality of the print edition, since Alden Global Capital shut down The Sun's printing plant and transferred print production to the Gannett organ in Wilmington, Delaware, has been abysmal. Light inking is the least of the problems.
The cost, however, has been rising. I believe it was Al Neuharth of Gannett who experienced the illumination that a decline in advertising revenue could be offset by jacking up the circulation prices, since newspaper readers were dependent on their habit. Unfortunately, neither Neuharth nor the other corporate illuminati ever figured out a way to attract new readers, and my generation with the newspaper habit is steadily proceeding to a location to which the circulation department cannot deliver.
Dammit, I want my morning ritual, in my chair with a cup of strong coffee and my newspaper. The main pleasure that has survived is the grumbling. Tribune eliminated copy editing even before the company was acquired by Alden Global, and the daily procession of subject-verb disagreements, misplaced modifiers, and other offenses against English usage does not pass unremarked on at these premises. There is also a grim satisfaction in noticing when the online text has been incorporated intact without altering references, a clear indication of the lack of an editor's eye on the page. Carp, carp, carp, that's the life.
I could call circulation to cancel print, converting the savings to bourbon money. But I might just ride it out until one of the sharp-pencil people at Alden Global determines that the cost of print production, even with Gannett, is greater than the mingy returns from print advertising and subscriptions, turning my seven-day-a-week newspaper into a three-day-a-week newspaper, or simply online only.
In forty years at newspapers I only twice heard an editor call the pressroom to say, "Stop the presses." I think it will be a good deal less than forty until all of them are stopped.
I believe you are correct. Those who run newspapers unfortunately haven't figured out how to evolve with our modern world. As the cost of subscriptions continues to rise, we turn elsewhere for news. We digest news in smaller bites now, and I've found "Ask Amy" on a free site, which allow me to indulge my inner Mrs. Kravitz. I subscribe digitally to the Fort Worth Star Telegram. They insist on throwing a print copy each Sunday morning. My sprinklers run each Sunday morning. Each Sunday afternoon, I take the dripping bundle directly to the recycle bin. And I shake my head at the waste.
ReplyDeleteYou made me think back to my dad in the 1960s/70s who would sit down after dinner with the evening newspaper and a blue pencil in his hand to catch all the errors.
ReplyDeleteI’m with you, John. I still subscribe to the print edition of the Melbourne Age, even though it’s a pale shadow of its former magnificent self. I’ve been a subscriber for sixty years, as my parents were before me, and I treasure my morning ritual of reading the paper and doing the crossword puzzles over breakfast.
ReplyDeleteI was retired after 33 years in the umpteenth round of copy desk layoffs at my paper, and my addiction to fixing the poor crippled remnants of the print edition is still so strong that if I see something embarrassing enough, I email an enabler colleague who’s still there, and he fixes it for me.
ReplyDeleteI was for many years a subscriber to the Carroll County Times. I was not optimistic when it was acquired by the Baltimore Sun (or, more likely, but the Sun's owner). My lack of optimism was well founded. It gradually, then rapidly, became the Carroll County edition of the Sun, with one or two reporters assigned to the beat. I knew the jig was up when they removed the position of editor in chief. At this point, they don't even do a decent job of covering local high school football. I had thought surely that would be the last to go, but they aren't willing to pay stringers to attend every game in the county. In the meantime the ever-shrinking paper grew exorbitantly expensive.
ReplyDeleteWe dropped our paper subscription. We keep the online version, as it is still the least bad way to keep track of what the county commissioners and board of education are doing, but the paper version mostly sat unread until it ended up in recycling. So even an old dog like me has his limits.
I subscribe to the Toronto Star, digital only. They laid off all the in-house copy editors and proofreaders years ago. Within the first story or two, I find egregious errors and report them to the public editor, who says they care but that the volume of mail means they can’t send personal replies. I get personal replies—and prompt corrections, with thanks. It gets tiresome, though, because I feel like I’m doing their jobs for free, and I still have to put up with the annoyance of reading poorly written and edited copy. Plus I’m paying to do so!
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