It's official. The Mountain Democrat is now "Subscribers Only". I can't even get back into yesterday's article about Mario Lozano's trial! You can get to their main page, but if you click on any of the articles it takes you straight to a login page where it states " Welcome to . We offer you The Mountain Democrat's most up-to-date news, features, entertainment and sports. Mountain Democrat print subscribers will have full access to our web site, once they complete the registration process below. If you're not a Mountain Democrat subscriber, please choose a subscription package. Online access is restricted to subscribers only. "
So, this means I won't be able to get anymore information from their "gavel to gavel" coverage by their reporter. Googling doesn't help either. If I google "Mario Lozano Placerville", it brings up my blog, a mention of my blog on another blogger's site (Thank you, Sprocket!), an old article from Channel 10 News in Sacramento from when Mario was on the run, a listing from the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office Inmate Information about Mario and a few other sites. None of which are coverage of the trial! My brother said he'd talked to the reporter from the paper at the courthouse yesterday and explained what he and I were doing here. The reporter said he'd talk to his editor and see if something could be done so that we could continue to cover the trial. I guess all I can do now is wait to see if anything will come from that conversation Gene had with the reporter. But, we will still have Gene's posts to tell us what is going on in the courtroom.
Frustrating? You bet! lol...
I have to wonder though, about the purpose of making their online newspaper "subscribers only". Do they think that they're going to get more money by everyone out here on the web sending them money to get into their little local paper? From the comments I saw on their announcement the other day, I don't think their subscriber base is going to increase by much. A couple comments were actually from people who are subscribers and said they were going to cancel their subscription because of this new policy. Who knows. The only reason I've been visiting their website is because of the Mario Lozano trial. I live too far away from that area to really be interested in any other news from there. Oh well. We'll wait and see how it turns out.
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6 comments:
The New York Times tried that subscription option for selected content for about a year...they finally caved in. Oddly, it's the small papers that seem to think they can do it and succeed where the big boys failed. Smarter? Or just desperate for revenue?
I'm thinking desperate for revenue in this case. From what I saw in the comments the other day, the paper's subscriber base is pretty low. At some point they resorted to handing out papers at the local Walmart, I suppose as an advertising thing. I know that the Sac. Bee hands out free papers once in a while here and there in Sacramento, but not on a regular basis, which is what I gathered the Mt. Democrat was doing. Handing out the daily paper at Walmart - daily. I guess the publisher for the paper thinks he can do better than the "big guys" like the New York Times and a few other big time news sources. Even the CNN website used to have a "subscriber" thing a few years ago and it's all free now.
I hope your brother can cover as much of this trial as possible. Your blog will become the "go to" place for news on the trial.
My brother has told me that he intends to "see it through" to the end. For Kacie, for her family and for his own peace of mind. Hopefully he can do it. I worry about him though... Sitting there listening to the testimony and seeing the evidence has to be hard.
I wonder if the website will last too long with or without my $5 . If their articles cannot be found by google no-one is going to get there to even ponder whether or not to pay. Hiding one's information articles from google does not seem to be a great idea. In my world most of the newspapers have their articles freely available for 10 days, after that they go into archive & there is a fee to access - this seems a slightly more reasonable approach
Liz
I've never been able to find an article in the Mountain Democrat through google. I'm not going to give them any money to get into their website at this point. They want $30 for a 3 month subscription or $5 for a 3 day trial. Lozano's trial is going to last for about 3 weeks according my brother. Plus, according to their "subscription" news, whatever money I would send would only get me online access because I don't live in Western El Dorado County.. lol.. I'm sorry, but if I were to put money out for an online news source, it would be for a better source than the Mountain Democrat.
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