A reporter's worth
At a message board for one of the areas my new paper covers, this comment was posted about my paper offering a half-price subscription special (which a lot of papers do during the holiday season):
I didn't include the part where the paper's name was misspelled multiple times (there's only one "e" in "Democrat," folks)
But it's the "overpriced" comment that got to me, and I've only been with the paper two weeks.
Normally, a year-long subscription to the paper I write for is $129.60. Sure, sounds expensive, but break that down by the 365 papers produced every year (Yes, there are papers on holidays--I know this because I'm not going to get to see my family on Christmas) and it comes out to less than 36 cents per day for the newspaper.
By comparison, at the newsstand price, a year would come out to roughly $208.
I won't be self-centered and consider just the local copy. There's also special sections produced (heck, the housing development town this particular person lives in has it's own small publication my paper produces) plus there's insert advertising that, on some days, could offer a coupon that saves the person more than the 36 cents being paid for the paper.
Not to mention, if you look at it on a monthly basis (little more than 10 bucks), a newspaper subscription is significantly less than people pay for cable/satellite, telephone, morning coffee, etc.
But I think what bugs me about this more than anything (now I'll be self-centered) is saying 36 cents is "overpriced" for something I work for, something I put a large amount of time into. Something I'm currently driving for over two hours every day and burning up 60 bucks a week in gasoline, even with my gas-sipping Japanese compact, in order to help produce. That's not worth 36 cents to some people. Nor is the work of over 100 other people that work at the paper as well (there's more beyond the editorial department)
Your two cents (only 34 more to go): How would your work not being worth 36 cents to people make you feel?
When we wanted to renew so that we wouldn't have to miss any papers they wouldn't cut us a decent deal so we stopped the paper delivery.just a short time later this half off offer came out,guess we aren't that only ones that feel the paper is over priced.You can now subscribe at $36.00 for six months,$72.00 a year.
I didn't include the part where the paper's name was misspelled multiple times (there's only one "e" in "Democrat," folks)
But it's the "overpriced" comment that got to me, and I've only been with the paper two weeks.
Normally, a year-long subscription to the paper I write for is $129.60. Sure, sounds expensive, but break that down by the 365 papers produced every year (Yes, there are papers on holidays--I know this because I'm not going to get to see my family on Christmas) and it comes out to less than 36 cents per day for the newspaper.
By comparison, at the newsstand price, a year would come out to roughly $208.
I won't be self-centered and consider just the local copy. There's also special sections produced (heck, the housing development town this particular person lives in has it's own small publication my paper produces) plus there's insert advertising that, on some days, could offer a coupon that saves the person more than the 36 cents being paid for the paper.
Not to mention, if you look at it on a monthly basis (little more than 10 bucks), a newspaper subscription is significantly less than people pay for cable/satellite, telephone, morning coffee, etc.
But I think what bugs me about this more than anything (now I'll be self-centered) is saying 36 cents is "overpriced" for something I work for, something I put a large amount of time into. Something I'm currently driving for over two hours every day and burning up 60 bucks a week in gasoline, even with my gas-sipping Japanese compact, in order to help produce. That's not worth 36 cents to some people. Nor is the work of over 100 other people that work at the paper as well (there's more beyond the editorial department)
Your two cents (only 34 more to go): How would your work not being worth 36 cents to people make you feel?
Robert said this @ 11:57:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home