Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Online News Source Worries - Part Deux

I checked the Mountain Democrat website this morning and I can still get into the articles without being a "paid subscriber" to their newspaper. No news about Mario Lozano yet, though. I wouldn't have expected anything yet anyway, since the trial itself is due to start today. I did get an email from the editor of the paper this morning in reply to one I sent a week or so ago asking about my copying their articles into my blog for all to read. The answer is "no copying" unless I pay a $35 copyright fee. He says I'm welcome to post a link to their paper though. Well, I'm not going to pay that $35 fee to copy their articles, so I'll just post my observations about the articles and provide a link to the article if we can get to it without paying to see it. I'm not going to pay that $10 a month for a subscription to their paper either, and from the comments that folks have written about their announcement of making people pay to see their newspaper online, I'm not the only one. A few of the folks who wrote comments to that article mentioned a couple other newspapers who print news about the Placerville area and I'll be keeping an eye on them to see if they say anything about the Lozano trial. Hopefully there will be more than one reporter sitting there in the courtroom. So, we shall see how it unfolds in the days to come whether or not I'm going to be able to read anything in the Mountain Democrat or if any other news organizations will be saying anything about the trial.

My brother will be there in the courtroom, along with Kacie's family, watching and listening to the attorneys present their cases. And he'll be posting here in the evenings. I just wish I was able to be there in the courtroom as well.

4 comments:

Sprocket said...

Many reputable papers like you to register (free) to view their online edition. I have no problem with that. Very few want a paid subscription. Those that do, I avoid. I would not pay either, Anakerie. Tell your brother to take good notes and you might see your blog traffic soar and get some great hits, especially if his coverage is all that's out there on the net that's free.

Anakerie said...

I've registered with a number of free newspapers online and have no objections to doing so. I refuse to pay for an online subscription to a small "local" newspaper site though. They'll not be getting my money. My brother told me he was going to try to pick up a "fresh new" notepad to take with him when he went down (over? up? lol)to Placerville yesterday. The blog has already gotten a lot of "hits" because of our posts about Mario. Apparently the articles that the Mountain Democrat prints don't come up when you google his name. My blog does. lol..

Sprocket said...

That's great news Anakerie! I recommend still linking to any papers you find that might have a story on it, just as a mater of regular reporting. You could then get picked up hopefully by Sphere Related Content and really see your traffic increase.

Tell your brother to get lots of notebooks, lol! I went through about 30 with my Spector coverage, but in my defense, that was a five month trial.

Anakerie said...

hehe.. From what the D.A. told my brother, they're not looking at this trial lasting any longer than about 2 weeks. For my brother's sake, I hope he's right. Placerville is quite a ways from where he lives and his job would definitely suffer.. As well as his health!

I was planning on linking to any news articles I can find about Kacie or Lozano. So far, the silence about the case has been "deafening". There have been very few articles about Kacie or Lozano since it happened. So far, I've only been able to find the small notices on the Mountain Democrat site and then the one on the radio station's site that I linked in another post. **shrug** All I can do is keep searching the net and reporting what I find. My brother gets to do the day-to-day stuff if he's able.