supporting journalism

[mellowtigger]

The truth is a casualty in tough times. I thought I might subscribe to a newspaper, but both local outlets are more expensive than I realized ($200 for Star Tribune and $150 for Pioneer Press), even for online-only subscriptions.

For money like that, I'd rather have access to the USA website where I most often read news articles, the Washington Post. They're within that critical "Most Reliable" section of news trustworthiness.  Their left-center rating also suits my typical reading habits.  Everybody reviews their sources of news for fact-based reporting, right?  Anyway, I lucked out, and they had a special for only $39 instead of $100 for a digital-only subscription. Why is local news so much more expensive? Is it just a matter of scale, so that fewer subscribers means higher cost per subscriber?

In addition, I spent some more of my COVID relief check by donating to local news outlets, MinnPost and North News.  I would've donated to Insight News too, but I couldn't figure out how.  Still, though, I hope I helped my neighborhood at least a little bit by supporting local journalism.

I know, having enough spare money to contribute any amount to journalism is disgustingly elitist these days.  How did we get so bad off that me earning $37K/year puts me better off than 33% of Americans (even before 2020 happened, now is it 50%, or even higher)?  Something has gone very, very wrong.

I also want to know how the problem houses on this block always have cars and trucks outside that are so much nicer than my rust bucket?  Oh, yeah, it's probably because they're operating tax-free businesses like all the best companies do.

Comments

[mllesatine]

Tax-free business sounds so much nicer than drug trafficking.

My parents have dropped their subscription to their local newspaper a year ago and I really miss it. It was always a nice ritual to read the paper on the weekends when I was home and we usually talked about what we read. Hell, we even read each other interesting articles about local news. It's not something you can easily do with a digital subscription.

[zipperbear]

Posted on their FB page -- seems like an innovative model for donations and ads, if it works:
Insight News
1d ·
Your favorite restaurant. The flower shop in your neighborhood. The Black-owned coffee shop that just opened this year. The impact of COVID -19 and racial strife in Minnesota has left many businesses unable tor reopen and recover from this economic depression.

Insight News is proud to support the many deserving businesses and non profit communities and ask you to join with us to make real recovery a reality. A contribution of your choice will provide advertising solutions via Insight News and increase business revenue for those most in need.
Support a small business today. https://bit.ly/insightsnewssupport

[mellowtigger]

Thanks! I just now completed a donation to them too.

[mellowtigger]

Yes, and it's an amazingly accurate comparison. Both forms of business siphon resources from their surrounding environment without contributing fairly to the construction and maintenance of their own needed infrastructure.

[mrdreamjeans]

You make important points!

[mellowtigger]

I may have indulged a tangent at the end, but the condition of the economy affects so many interdependent systems that we need functioning well.

[mellowtigger]

#ALittleGoodNews They're not one of the journalism sites I mentioned supporting recently, but they are "Owned and operated by journalists", which is different from the norm. BringMeTheNews have hired a gay weatherman who was fired from local television after repeatedly denouncing fascism on Facebook (which does break the "both sides" neutrality platform).

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-weather/sven-sundgaard-joins-bring-me-the-news-weather-team

https://www.startribune.com/on-sven-sundgaard-s-firing-journalists-need-to-respect-neutrality/570255042/