FreePress to Boston Globe: Drop Coronavirus Paywall

March 19, 2020

According to Free Press, which “was created [in 2003] to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media,” while the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and other dailies have dropped their paywalls for coronavirus coverage, the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times have not.

Thus, this Free Press post (tip o’ the pixel to Nieman Journalism Lab).

 

 

Here’s some of what Boston Globe Customer Service says about retaining its paywall:

Subscriber support enables the Boston Globe to produce vital reporting that informs and strengthens our community.  Our journalists have been working 24/7 with staff across our organization to provide reliable and helpful information to readers as news on the coronavirus pandemic rapidly unfolds. We are currently offering non-subscribers our lowest rate ever – full digital access to BostonGlobe.com at just $1 for 6 months, commitment-free.

 

(To be fair graf goes here)

To be fair, Boston Globe Media does tout its free coverage at Boston.com, which is sort of CliffsNotes to the Globe, as well as access to some content at STAT and a free newsletter. But that’s hardly the full-court press available at the mother ship.

Which, it seems, is exactly the point the Globe is trying to make.

 

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Thanksgrubbing at the Boston Globe?

November 28, 2013

New trend in newspapers (via Politico):

WE LOVE THAT THE THANKSGIVING PAPERS remain pleasantly plump. The (Portland) Oregonian in our driveway had 46 inserts, including a 60-page Macy’s monster with inserts within the insert.

WHAT WE DON’T LOVE: The new, Scrooge-like practice of charging home-delivery subscribers MORE for the paper BECAUSE it’s fat with ads (“added value”), and therefore more lucrative for the publisher. Jim Romenesko posted the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s note to its EZ Pay subscribers: “Because of its large size (last year’s was 5 pounds), the Thanksgiving Day newspaper is the most expensive to produce and difficult to distribute. … Effective this year, we will charge a premium rate of $2.35 for the Thanksgiving Day newspaper. This charge will be debited to your newspaper account … Our Christmas Day holiday edition will be packed with after-holiday savings from your favorite retailers. … [W]e will charge a premium rate of $1.50.”

 

Here’s the Romenesko post (from November 7).

Some newspapers, though, are only going halfway with the gambit.

WE’RE FINE WITH charging more for today’s fat issue at the newsstand, which a bunch of papers are doing: The WashPost imposed Sunday rates ($2.50 instead of $1.25); The Boston Globe is the Sunday price of $3.50, up from the daily $1.25. L.A. Times is $2, up from the usual $1.50. Regular prices: Chicago Tribune at $1.50; Newsday (Long Island) at $1.25.

 

From today’s Globe:

 

Screen Shot 2013-11-28 at 12.51.44 PM

 

What about Newsstand Nation – you fine with that?

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Russel Pergament’s Jewish News Service Is Totally Old Testament

October 17, 2013

Several days ago the hardreading staff posted an item about the Jewish News Service running this ad in the Boston Herald but not the Boston Globe.

 

Picture 4

 

We also said we’d try to contact JNS founder (and inveterate publishing bunny) Russel Pergament to ask, among other things, if he’ll be advertising in the Globe anytime soon.

And so we did. Whereupon we had a nice conversation with Pergament, a media dynamo the hardworking staff has known for over three decades, ever since he was founding the Tab newspapers and we were copy chief at Filene’s.

(Best part of that job: We met the Missus.)

Best part of Russel Pergament: He’s entirely unfazed at JNS being depicted “as foaming-at-the mouth right wingers,” as he put it, referring to this Jewish Daily Forward piece.

Instead, he says this:

Even the most left-wing Jewish writers who see Israel as an aggressive Nazi-like state get nervous about reports like this one from Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet [regarding Jewish soldiers purportedly harvesting the organs of Arabs].

 

Pergament says a dozen papers – including Christian media and secular media that “emphasize the objective nature of the facts we send” – have subscribed to JNS.  He says he’s also run ads in The New Republic and a New Britain, CT paper, while the Jerusalem Press and Chicago Tribune have picked up JNS content.

As for the Boston dailies, Pergament says he gets more bang for the buck in the Herald, and that the Herald sales rep called and asked for his business.

Hey, Globeniks – any response?

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