I got a call today from the San Francisco Chronicle. The number has shown up at least once a day for the past week. I never answered it and today, I decided to put an end to this. As a side note, to telemarketers, please, either leave a message or don’t call back. Calling me once or twice a day for a week really doesn’t put me in the right mood if you ever get through to me.
Back to the story. The Chronicle offered me a six month deal for 4 days a week (including the big Sunday paper). $10 dollars for 6 months. Some quick numbers:
- At 26 weeks that’s $0.38 per week
- At 4 days a week, that’s just under $0.10 a day
I said no. My reasons:
1) I already get a daily New York Times and Wall Street Journal. For global, financial and national news, I barely can justify needing both.
2) For local news, I only need to check in at a local site, and I do that at sfgate, the Chronicle’s online version.
3) Despite the side of me that can’t pass up a good deal (and no matter what you think of the Chronicle’s editorial issues, less than a dime a day is a SCREAMING deal), I can’t see the need to have more resources put towards bringing another paper to my door.
Why the Times and the Journal? Because they have the only thing that will save any newspaper in the long term: Strong editorial content that you can’t get anywhere else. Without that, papers large and small, are doomed. Doomed I say!
Less than a dime a day and I said no.
Did I mention I used to work at the Chronicle…
Filed under: MeepMurp
The most painful part of all is… I wouldn’t get the Chronicle even if it were free — the task of moving it from the front stoop and into the house and out to the recycing bin would be more work than the editorial content of the paper would justify. That’s exactly why I’m liking the Examiner. I get my local news fix in a compact and manageable format, without all the rest of the dreck that weighs down the Chron.