Name: Tess
Home: St. Louis
Post-Dispatch Vent
This morning, I searched the Post-Dispatch archives to find an article about StudioSTL from last June. Search after search turned up nothing. Finally, I realized that articles older than 30 days had been moved to an archive--and you have to pay $2.95 to download each one. What makes me even more furious: there's no exception for subscribers.
I have been supporting newspapers financially for the past 9 years. I pay my $17 a month to have the newsprint version delivered to my door. Why can I not freely read the archives? Most periodicals I've seen allow subscribers full access to online archives.
It makes me mad, too, that the paper has changed the rules on me. There are lots of recipes I haven't clipped from the paper because I expect them to be available online. I expect to be able to find articles and share them with my readers.
The newspaper has just erected a big brick wall to block content, and that's a mistake. A few readers who need specific articles might shell out the $2.95, but most will simply go elsewhere. Now that I know that any links will vanish after 30 days, I will think twice about linking to any Post-Dispatch articles. I sympathize with newspapers' financial woes, but this is a wrong-headed approach to trying to stay afloat in the information age.
I have been supporting newspapers financially for the past 9 years. I pay my $17 a month to have the newsprint version delivered to my door. Why can I not freely read the archives? Most periodicals I've seen allow subscribers full access to online archives.
It makes me mad, too, that the paper has changed the rules on me. There are lots of recipes I haven't clipped from the paper because I expect them to be available online. I expect to be able to find articles and share them with my readers.
The newspaper has just erected a big brick wall to block content, and that's a mistake. A few readers who need specific articles might shell out the $2.95, but most will simply go elsewhere. Now that I know that any links will vanish after 30 days, I will think twice about linking to any Post-Dispatch articles. I sympathize with newspapers' financial woes, but this is a wrong-headed approach to trying to stay afloat in the information age.
posted by Tess | 8:19 AM
4 Comments:
Can you do a look-up at your school library?
Oh Tess that sucks. I mean, you're totally right, and all, but I can imagine your immediate frustration at coming up empty-handed. I'd have wanted to throw something. :)
I definitely think that it's annoying. I can't imagine that they get all that many takers on paying for the lookup either. I understand that they don't want to give away their content,which can be a losing enterprise if you don't generate the ad revenue a major online news source has, but certainly subscribers should get search privileges.
Update: Yesterday I met someone who works for the Post-Dispatch, and she said in the next 6 months or so they'll be putting the full archives online.
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