Yes, I will publish a story at 2 AM, so you can be the first to read it. And no, I won’t charge you … EVER. For I fight for truth, justice and a truly free press.
The kajillionaire who owns The Whidbey Examiner would like you to pay for his yacht to be vacuumed.
Seriously.
The Examiner, like the Whidbey News-Times and South Whidbey Record, for all their protests of being local, are owned by Sound Publishing, which is an arm of Black Press Group Ltd., a Canadian-based company that owns more than 200 papers in two countries.
When you spend your money with the “local” papers, a sizable portion goes North, and I’m not talking about Bellingham.
And now the Examiner, which, for many years, was the one true independent paper in this area, the last paper fighting the good fight, is a shell of its former self.
Canada stripped away the Examiner’s history, erasing years worth of stories off the paper’s web site in a day.
I wrote hundreds of stories for the paper when we were “fighting the good fight” under a publisher/editor, who, while we cheesed each other off frequently, was deeply committed to keeping independent journalism alive.
Good luck finding a single one of those stories now that the Tim Horton fanatics own the joint.
The Examiner does not have a stand-alone staff, as its reporters are News-Times employees and much of what is printed in the Examiner is a mirror image of what is printed in the News-Times, albeit with slightly altered headlines.
The Examiner rarely, if ever, breaks news. It frequently fails to cover “local” events the way a “local” paper would, and should, be expected to.
When Coupeville High School had its Homecoming parade and football game this year, not a SINGLE Examiner photo appeared online for a full week.
I ran more than 50 in the first 48 hours.
But starting next week, the Examiner (and the bean counters back in Moosejaw) wants you to pay for their paltry online offerings.
The News-Times and Record will follow shortly thereafter, unless this is merely cover to shut the Examiner down after the subscriptions fail to meet expectations.
As newspapers everywhere flounder, some are desperately grabbing on to digital subscriptions in an effort to find more money.
The Examiner cites a rise in the number of papers that are following this trend as their primary reason for making you pay to read their three-days-late, inch-thin coverage.
Except, they quickly ignore the other info readily available which shows newspapers are having a terrible time actually making any money off of digital subs. Because few people are actually willing to pay.
You can try and charge all you want. If no one is willing to pay, what’s the point, other than alienating the three people still reading your rag?
Times have changed. We live in an age where the internet has taken the power away from the media corporations who once controlled the flow of news.
A generation expects to receive their news for free, quickly. When a paper like the Record outright refuses to post stories to the internet until the print edition hits the streets, resulting in week-long waits, it’s beyond embarrassing.
It’s dereliction of duty.
Those clinging to the past can sneer all they want as they try and claim a high moral ground as “professionals.”
The reality is when major newspapers have crashed and burned and influential writers such as Art Thiel are writing for blogs, the folks running the blogs are often just as experienced, professional and creative, if not more so, than those hanging on in corporate land.
The biggest different is those of us out here on the “outside” are working for the people, while those of you on the “inside” are working for The Man.
Freedom of the press means many things, and one huge part of that is the ability of people to have free, easy access to the news.
I don’t have medical insurance, a 401K, paid vacation or doughnuts in the break room (well, actually I do, but they were gifts from local parents) like the Canuck-financed reporters do.
What I do have is the knowledge that you will never, ever have to pay a subscription to read Coupeville Sports.
Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
It’s not the American way. But, then again, they do a lot of things differently in Canada…
Coupeville Sports 