Beginning this week, this news organization will no longer be giving its work away online.
Print readers have always paid for the news, though to be fair, the price of a subscription often doesn’t cover even the cost of newsprint and delivery.
The truth is, news gathering has traditionally been funded by advertising, but in these days of declining print advertising, those print dollars just don’t go far enough, and online advertising just isn’t making up the difference.
Real news gathering – the kind done by professional journalists who put their names on their work and who are accountable for its accuracy, fairness and balance – is not cheap.
So this week, we’re launching a digital subscription program, asking those who read our news to support local journalism by subscribing.
The first four weeks is only 99 cents. After that, we’re asking $10 every four weeks. That’s about what you probably pay for any one of a number of streaming video services.
And we’re worth it. We bring you the news, and more importantly, the news that’s relevant to you because it’s near you. Local news.
Our journalists are real people who live in the communities we cover, who go to the places we write about, and who know the issues they cover. We’re real people, and we do real news.
We believe that good journalism serves the people. We take seriously our obligation to inform the public and to ensure government is accountable to the governed. We are committed to the truth, and we are, ourselves, accountable to our readers as well as to those we cover.
We always aspire to get it right, and when, on occasion, we make an error, we own up to it and fix it.
RELATED: FAQs on the digital subscription program
We believe that the free press is vital to democracy.
But news, unfortunately, is not free.
If you weren’t already a fan of local news, you would not be reading this.
We hope, therefore, that you’re fan enough to become part of the family.
If you haven’t already, please subscribe.
