Well the hardrreading staff opened up the old emailbag yesterday and here’s what poured out.
According to the Herald’s Digital Subscription Frequently Asked Questions, a regular digital subscription includes:
- Unlimited, exclusive journalism from our reporters and photographers.
- Opinions and reviews from columnists and critics.
- Daily access to the Digital Replica edition, an exact replica of what we print and produce each day.
So your two bucks is basically buying you a) No Pop-up or Video Ads, and b) 2x Faster Page Loads for the next six months. Which is all good. Except . .
1) You’ll pay $4 per week for Premium Plus after that, and
2) That whole “trusted news, analysis, and interviews” thing has been gutted like a sea bass by the Herald’s bloodsucking hedge fund owner, Alden Global Capital.
The Herald newsroom – which, again thanks to the paper’s vulture-capital owners, has been forced to shack up with its kissin’ cousins at the Lowell Sun – can barely field a soccer team at this point. It’s gotten so bad at the scrawny local tabloid that executive editor Joe Dwinell has been known to write two or three pieces in a day for the paper.
Go ask the Boston Globe’s Brian McGrory how often he hits send on a story about, say, a Martha’s Vineyard porn lawsuit.
The hardreading staff – despite our often gimlet eye – has long been #TeamHerald, if only to keep the stately local broadsheet a bit less overbearing. But we wonder how long the flimsy local tabloid can keep offering less content for more money, as Alden relentlessly strip mines it like West Virginia coal country.
Maybe a “Premium Minus” Go Fund Me page is in order right about now.
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 
[…] since the Globe barely occupies its stately State Street headquarters and the Herald newsroom is couch-surfing at the Lowell Sun – the new Gardner revelation was also a big […]