The Journal Sentinel yesterday raised the retail price of its daily newspaper by 25 cents, labeling it “modest” increase.
It’s also a not-so-modest 50% jump, which the paper forgot to mention in this instance, but would have been sure to point out had it been imposed by some other business or — golly! — by local government as a property tax increase.
I really, really want the paper to stay in business and stay locally owned, as weak as it is at times. If you don’t like the JS, you would probably like not having it even less. The paper, though, now is charging proportionately a lot more for a lot less content and letting its readers know this in a note that just reeks of “you are idiots anyway” attitude.
JS — Please. Stop it.
I, too, want the paper to survive, but as it gets thinner there are fewer old-style readers who are willing to pay so much for it. With fewer reporters and newsholes, there is a lot less meat in the JS than there used to be. Without newspapers with reporters in the field, where will people get local news about their schools and city government? I never thought I’d see the day……
I heard yesterday from a young reporter at the Waukesha Freeman that he’s hearing rumors that his paper may fold this spring. Too bad.
Raising the price from a nickel to a dime would be a 100% increase, Oh My. A bit of statistical context certainly is in order.
And while it’s certainly true the quantity of content has decreased, one could argue the quality has improved, at least as measured by the recent awards and the high-caliber series.
Bashing a local product is such a typical Milwaukee endeavor.
Lastly, as most businesses are doing, the JS is working to do more with less.
— from the newsroom.
The point, anonymous poster from the newsroom, is that the JS announced its 25-cent, 50% price increase in a backhanded, minimalist way it would not allow another entity to do.
Or wasn’t it the JS that reported “A Milwaukee Common Council committee on Wednesday backed several fee increases, including a 28% boost in the solid waste fee and a 48% jump in the storm-water fee”?
The recommended storm water fee increase was $15.28 a year for the average homeowner, compared to the $91.25 annual newsstand price increase imposed by the JS.
One increase was framed to appear huge; the other was framed to minimize. Yes, a little statistical context from the JS would have indeed been welcome — a $91.25 increase is a fair amount of money.
As far as the paper’s quality — it has indeed done some very good work, but awards are a terrible way to measure that.
It’s great for the JS that the JS won the Pulitzer, but that doesn’t mean diddly squat to the average reader. Most of the world simply does not care.
You cite winning awards as a sign of quality, but one could argue that it is a sign the JS is more interested in serving contest judges than in serving the local community. If I can read in the paper some feature-ish six-part series, but can’t find out what I need to function as an informed citizen, has the paper succeeded?
And as for finger-pointing about “bashing a local product” — yeah, well, I guess we can all be glad that the paper never bashes a local anything. (Giggle)
The paper strives to deliver both – content that will be “judged” as the best journalism in the nation and content that serves its local readers.
To suggest one is exclusive of the other seems misguided.
I’ve reread the announcement on the price increase several times and still can’t find what reeks of a “you are idiots anyway attitude.”
It seems to lay out, in an admittedly shortened version, the reason for the price increase.
I’ll give you that the term “modest” was used to soften the blow in a marketing fashion.
But your breathless criticism suggests the readers don’t or can’t recognize that the paper is a business.
Who then is suggesting that they are idiots?
Breathless?
And I have not a clue as to how what I wrote suggests that readers don’t or can’t recognize that the paper is a business. Of course they do. I also believe that the paper strives to do the best it can with what it has and that it announced a fairly significant price hike in a sleight-of-hand way that it would not allow others to do.
All those things can happen together.
The fundamental question is this: does the JS, as a business, owe its customers the same degree of honesty and forthrightness that it demands of others it covers journalistically? Or as a business, can it indulge in “marketing” ploys with its readers? The paper’s use of “modest” — omitting the 50%, omitting the $91.25 a year — was indeed a marketing ploy that readers were supposed to accept, I guess, as if they were either very young children — or idiots.
And, finally, I do not believe and did not say that chasing after national prizes means you can’t serve local readers (and I’m not the one who mentioned prizes, but not local coverage. as a quality measure) although I think in the case of the JS, the chase for the prizes does indeed, at times, hurt local readers and local coverage.
Plus, most importantly, I recently put my money where my mouth is and renewed my subscription for another year. I wish everyone would do the same and new subscribers would come flooding in.
I just dropped the paper today. It’s not worth it without the Waukesha section and the coverage from the missing staff. Also, I needed to cut back as my pension isn’t very much, and living on Social Security is going to be tough.
well 50 % increase is steep but it can be avoided by being a home subscriber and enjoying the paper for the same cost
Call me a Pollyanna, but I was surprised when both my wife and stepson (neither of them avid readers) said they thought the newspaper was still a good value for 75 cents. Of course, we get home delivery, as does my stepson.
At least the JS announced the price hike, although hurriedly. But there has been little said about the overall shrinkage of the paper, just the disappearance of certain content. By contrast the Chicago Tribune publicly announced last year that their redesigned paper would have a 20% cut in the total newshole.
Could the moderator please watch the language, I don’t think Children should be exsposed to words like “Newshole”,
. I’m not happy with the de-contenting of the Paper either, but I did get a $39.99 rate for one year of seven days a week a few months back because the JS was trying to raise circulation in our “Ghetto” zip code 53208. On the optional TV Que, how about I can opt out of all the classified ads and circulars, that would get rid of half of the Paper right there. I know they don’t want to lose the Eyeballs, but what a waste when half the paper automatically gets recycled every day.