WLBT’s Marsha Thompson gives the station credit for protecting consumers by instigating change in classified advertising policies at The Clarion-Ledger and Jackson Free Press. Seems some folks were being duped into buying postal exam booklets via the classifieds that are, in fact, offered free to the public by the USPS.
David Crisp of the free distribution Billings Outpost pontificates over the large newspaper companies trying to corner the distribution market in Montana, and he suggests the actions have a faint whiff of desperation to them. The hubbub is similar to the noise surrounding Gannett’s implementation of a distribution network in the Jackson metro area.
“Pam J.” of Massachusetts, reader of the Everyday Cheapskate published in the Northwest Herald and syndicated to a gazillion others, recently offered some startling advice to fellow tightwads: “To reduce the cost of subscribing to a newspaper, I read it mostly online.” This slap-to-the-forehead idea lets us traditional print folk know the gig is up and readers have caught on. Why pay if it can be had online for free?
Why, indeed. Even papers that had been charging for accessing Web content are coming around. And plenty of papers are facing the notion that they may one day forego cover prices or even newsprint itself.
Can free distribution be far behind for most of us? The Mary McMisers of the world aren’t the biggest concern — the big task ahead for traditional print is addressing the entire generation of surfers coming of age who’ve been conditioned that information is free.
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