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Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Media Re: Re: The Packers Model

Posted by Dan Savage on Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 2:38 PM

This...

The P-I currently has 129,563 daily subscribers who pay $234 a year. Should the same number of people—whether or not they currently subscribe to the P-I—donate the cost of a subscription, annual revenue would be $30.3 million.

...is not gonna happen. And I say that as a subscriber to the P-I, a lifelong reader of daily newspapers, a newspaper reader headed to a marriage counselor the day after the P-I ceases publication. (I want to switch our subscription over to the last local daily standing, Frank's Seattle Times, and the boyfriend won't have it—not after the Bush, McGavick, and Rossi endorsements. He won't have Frank's Seattle Times in the house; the Sunday Frank's Seattle Times, which you have to get with your P-I subscription, like it or not, goes straight from the porch to the recycling bin.)

Those of us who still subscribe to a daily paper aren't just buying the news. We're buying the experience, the rituals, of taking a daily paper. We're paying to hear the thud on the porch in the early morning, we're paying to have the news placed in front of us without our having to download it—it's there, unavoidable, every day, on the porch. Skip a day, and it's still sitting there, waiting for us to read it or recycle it. A newspaper is not just another website we have to remember to check out every day. We're also paying for the feel of the newsprint in our hands, the ink on our fingers, and, yes, we're paying for journalism—the castrated daily variety (objective journalists! family newspaper!)—but all of it's old news by the time it hits the porch. But it's old news a form that you can fold and mutilate, carrying around with you, leave on the back of the toilet, or on the bus, write on, news you can skim not scroll through. All of that plus journalism is worth $234 a year for rapidly shrinking group of dead-tree-news fans. But I'll switch to the Seattle Times—and risk divorce—before "subscribing" to a P-I website that offers me the news but not the newspaper experience.

Sorry.

Comments (19) RSS

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So if they decide to turn instead to the obviously successful Stranger business plan, would that be called the "Fudgepacker Model"?

Posted by grin on March 3, 2009 at 2:47 PM

That's what we're going to do, too. For the same reasons. And we refuse to take the misnomered Seattle Times, as well--which is really an East Side paper.

I wish online news sites had printable digest version so that I could still print out a "paper" to take with me places, too. Hotels sometimes offer the NYT as a printed digest like that; I wish that were more widespread.

Posted by Simac on March 3, 2009 at 2:49 PM

Only if it has sparkle vampires in it.

Sprinkled with fairy dust.

Posted by Will in Seattle on March 3, 2009 at 2:54 PM

A Bush endorsement printed on paper and a Bush endorsement viewed in a web browser are equally worthless to me.

Posted by Joe M on March 3, 2009 at 3:00 PM

FWIW, you can cancel the Sunday Times. I did it the morning of the McGavick endorsement.

Posted by Juan on March 3, 2009 at 3:08 PM

We also want our kids to see us picking up the paper on the porch and reading it, just as we want them to see us subscribing to and reading magazines, buying books and checking them out from the library, etc.

We even want them to witness us turning red in the face as we scan the Op Ed page, calling Frank Blethen a stupid fucking son of a bitch, writing an angry email to the editor, asking our husbands if they can believe what a stupid fucking son of a bitch that dumbass Frank Blethen is and dropping a couple of bucks in the swear jar.

Posted by gay dad on March 3, 2009 at 3:09 PM

What part of THE HEARST CORPORATION don't you folks get? If you thought the HEARST CORPORATION gave a fart about Seattle, you were wrong. Just look at the way they are behaving with the PI. PI staff don't even know if they'll be able to pay their rents next month! At least Frank lives here. And the folks who put out the Times (many of whom also worked at the PI) are VERY MUCH part of Seattle. The Seattle Times has more than a few twits --but look at the PI.... They've got their share, too. Arguing that the Times isn't "Seattle" enough and refusing to buy the paper is throwing the baby out with the bathwater! We need A DAILY PAPER! Tell the TImes what you want from them --and I'm betting they'll do it. Tell them what you want and they haven't got much else to do.. they want to survive.
Instead of being pouty --get proactive.

Posted by sreader on March 3, 2009 at 3:32 PM

gay dad @6 - it is nice to know that there are at least a few people left who:

a) can enjoy getting a paper with editorials that don't always echo their own opinions, and can then enjoy writing an angry email about it to the paper. why do so many people *only* want to hear opinions that they already agree with?

b) understand that a newspaper is a lot more than its editorial pages.

Posted by newspaper lover on March 3, 2009 at 3:40 PM

"we're paying to have the news placed in front of us without our having to download it—it's there, unavoidable, every day, on the porch. Skip a day, and it's still sitting there, waiting for us to read it or recycle it. A newspaper is not just another website we have to remember to check out every day"

Heard of an RSS feed?

Posted by w7ngman on March 3, 2009 at 3:56 PM

Yes, God forbid that your boyfriend read a newspaper that has a different opinion -- on its editorial page -- than your own.

If you only read publications with opinions that mirror yours you're really no better than viewers of Fox News.

Posted by rjh on March 3, 2009 at 4:07 PM

I can agree with Dan up to a point. I too have been reading newspapers all my life, and I would be devastated if The Washington Post were to go out of business. Over the last year I have shifted over to reading an online edition of the Post that is formatted just like the print edition. This saves paper and the environment. The Post is in trouble also, eliminating sections (Book World died 2 Sundays ago, leaving the New York Times as the only paper with a separate book review section), but maybe an online edition that reads just like the print edition is a path to salvation.

Posted by Chris Tharrington on March 3, 2009 at 4:23 PM

@9: Sorry man, you just don't get it. That's not a bad thing, it just means you're too young to be addicted to newsprint.

A brilliant piece of writing, Dan, and dead on. I've always subscribed to the P-I, but when it dies, I'll subscribe to the Times. I'll send twenty bucks to the P-I fund, but just the once.

Posted by J.R. on March 3, 2009 at 5:15 PM

@10 - yeah, better to read the anti-American unpatriotic rantings of draft dodgers like Limbaugh and Rove ....

Posted by Laser Cats in your face reading your paper on March 3, 2009 at 5:19 PM

It's not a matter of the Seattle Times often disagreeing with progressive ideals, it's that they don't represent Seattle one bit. Dino Rossi got 19.67% of Seattle's general election vote last year despite the endorsement of the largest newspaper in the city. That's pathetic. I'm sure Bush and McGavick got even less of Seattle's vote, but I can't find results by district for those elections.

If you need to read newsprint every day for the rest of your life, get a subscription to the NY Times, USA Today, Daily Variety, Stars and Stripes, or something else that reflects Seattle a little better than the Seattle Times. Or invest your P-I subscription money in theprintedblog.com to get them to distribute in Seattle.

Posted by lizzie on March 3, 2009 at 5:33 PM

USA Today has home delivery subscriptions :)

Posted by ChocolateIsaFoodGroup on March 3, 2009 at 6:30 PM

My grandparents didn't buy the P-I because of Hearst's union busting. My parents hated Hearst's P-I editorials supporting fascism, Joe McCarthy and the Vietnam War. Yes, the Times (Frank) endorsed Bush, McGavick and Rossi, but also Bill Bradley, John Kerry, Barack Obama and same-sex marriage (back in 2005). Hearst's threatened closure of the P-I is brutal and unnecessary, but true to its corporate roots.

Posted by mhr on March 3, 2009 at 7:03 PM

So wait, having no daily newspaper based here is better than having one headed by the Blethens with some lame editorial page viewpoints? Ummm. OK.

I recognize that as a Times employee I'm biased, but that seems screwed up regardless.

Posted by crassive on March 3, 2009 at 10:14 PM

If you want a daily newspaper and don't want Frank's fish wrapper you can always subscribe to the Tacoma News Tribune.

Posted by Chris Stefan on March 5, 2009 at 8:14 AM

In some cases, a day without a newspaper is like a day without fish wrapping.

Posted by missingthenews on March 17, 2009 at 5:16 PM