" For every evil under the sun there is a remedy ...
June 28 2007 02:24 PM Cynthia Rosenberry
Well, folks. It should come as no surprise that local alternative paper, the Grainger Today, recently announced that, due to rising gas costs, they’d no longer be giving the milk away for free. Starting next week, the price goes up from zero to .50. The Grainger County News is also .50.
Although their claim to be "Grainger County's FAVORITE newspaper" may be true, I’m sure it had a least a little something to do with the fact that their paper was FREE. If so, raising the price may hurt their readership for a while if many readers enjoyed the ease of picking up a free paper after paying higher prices locally for groceries and gas. Their readers ALSO have to pay the high gas prices as well. Personally, I have always found it an inconvenience to have to go to the store on Wednesday to pick up a copy of the Grainger Today or find them all gone by the next day (I have always suspected some folks are just using them as kindling in the winter). The very idea of driving around Grainger County looking for a copy (even if it contains an article or letter to the editor that I have written) is deterrent enough. I sometimes call ahead to the local IGA nearby my home but I’m sure the shopkeepers have much more important things to do than answer calls about the availability of a product which they don’t actually “sell”.
Personally, I’m glad it will be much easier to get a copy throughout the week if the price-increase will ensure that, even for a while. I don’t mind paying the extra couple quarters. We’ll gladly give up a candy bar to fit in the enormous expense. ;p
The best reason to read newspapers such as the Grainger Today and the Grainger County News over relying on papers outside the county, owned by media conglomerates such as Scripps Network (who, as an aside, gobbled up Knoxville’s free magazine the Metro Pulse), is their dogged focus on LOCAL news and that means you and me. I reckon big corporations looking at the bottom line are not going to foot the bill for that level of focus on less populated, hence, unprofitable regions unless they own one of the county’s papers (knock on wood). Well, I guess we can’t expect newspapers to act like a public service. They’re obviously in it to profit or they’d all be non-profits. They gotta eat. Gotta pay the bills, like everyone else. We don’t blame newspapers for operating like any thriving business would and make a living doing something we might occasionally consider a service to the public (although maybe not a “public service”). That said, the authors of this website offer a proposal to our local newspapers to help them hold their own, one that could work out for everyone concerned. Local Grainger County papers could hire THIS neighboring Grainger County business to create a database archive that would allow locals as well as Grainger County expatriates to pay the subscription rate and just log into a password protected area to read the entire paper online, while yet offering a handful of articles up front for “free”. Not only would this save everyone on gas but it would also support local business (namely our mutual interests).
Something else that may appeal to the locals (as well as the local papers if they have the articles online) is for someone to post a synopsis of highlights in both the local papers with links to get the full story. (DIGG.com does this right now and they’re extremely popular.) Access to the newspaper archives for a day could still cost .50 (because although they’re not paying for gas, they would still have to pay someone to post the articles online weekly.) PLUS, they’d be able to make extra money selling ads to their online site. After all, a great-looking and efficient archive to rival the likes of any Scripps-owned paper would surely encourage advertising sales coming in from outside the local area.
Our cost? For the Grainger Today and the Grainger County News (because we love our Grainger County neighbors), free advertising in both the newspaper and online for the lifetime of the website, plus noticeable credit for creating the site on the site itself.
Shoooot. ARE WE CRAZY OR WHAT?! (Don’t answer that.)
We’d love to hear from our local papers (i.e.neighbors) if they’d be interested in such a collaboration. Until then, like everyone else, we’ll probably pay out the .50 to read local news for as long as the little guys can hold off selling out to Scripps (knock on wood again).
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