We went free just in time for Christmas, a nice touch, I thought.
No one complained, and we got some nice notes thanking us. That was cool and unexpected, a gift, really.
It’s also a gamble. By making the print edition free to pick up and knocking down mail subscriptions to our cost, we’re giving up significant revenue.
Why on Earth would we do that? Isn’t this the End Times for local newspapers and community journalism? Shouldn’t I be explaining a sharp price increase while plaintively reciting the nationwide loss of more than half the journalists and a third of the newspapers in the past dozen or so years, along with news deserts blistering across the heartland while the research shows a corresponding slippage in local civics with taxes rising, lesser candidates taking office, corruption spreading, misinformation soaring, political divisiveness swelling in the wake of the local paper dying, and on and on?
Another time, perhaps.
I’m the editor, and so I think first of the reasons for an editor to love this move. Besides the simple fact no one walks around with quarters in their pocket anymore.
We know from other ski towns that more people will pick up print copies when the paper is free. More people reading the local newspaper only strengthens a community.
Locally, getting relative snippets online and catching NPR news while commuting helps, especially where the local effort is strong like here. Of course I would declare the spine of it all is the paper, right? But I see evidence that supports my self-interest, if with a decided rose tint to my glasses.
That newspaper readers tend to be wealthier, better educated, more community-minded than most shouldn’t preclude easier accessibility for everyone. Many generations of kids who don’t want to eat their peas and pay little attention to the boring ol’ paper evolved into regular readers as their interest in community grew — this life cycle has plugged along for 450 years.
It happened to me in my turn, even before bearing witness became my job. This also was before social media blips flowed into a slurry that addled our critical thinking and rotted our ability to concentrate, an observation also backed by research of the kind you’d most likely see reported in a newspaper.
Another key audience, visitors and second-home owners, are more likely pick up the local paper when it’s free, and we have a whole lot of those. That’s not so small a step toward a stronger community, either, especially if more second-home owners begin to take an interest in the community besides things to do in a fun place.
Visitors and second-home owners tend to have higher disposable incomes, and potential advertisers have that much more reason to invest in strengthening the community through the paper while being surprised at the return for their business. I’ve seen restaurants, real estate firms, ski shops among the those most happily so.
Anyway, that’s the idea behind going free in the racks and at cost to subscribers. I like it because I’ve worked at free papers and ones that charge, the biggest dinosaurs in the wake of the digital meteor strike.
It’s twilight for my industry, though I can see a new dawning for community papers or something akin to them. Electrified grapevines have their place, but they’re hardly satisfying or credible news sources. I think we’re already growing hungrier for the veritable fruits and vegetables that will make us healthier than a “news” diet of sugar sometimes laced with meth.
The big networks — Alphabet, Meta, et al — have gorged on income that once went to journalism and put themselves in the position of Big Oil, whose days now are numbered as basically society wises up.
We can see early hints in legislative initiatives in America and around the world to tax the behemoths a portion of what should go back into journalism in the best interests frankly of them as well as civilization at large. Bear in mind I’m speaking as a true believer.
Meantime, going free now is a gift, a gamble, an invitation to reciprocate with your attention, and another step among many to do our part to strengthen community, the ultimate quest.
Don Rogers is the editor of The Park Record. He can be reached at [email protected] or (970) 376-0745.