Trails

[danbrotherston]

Or support local journalism. I think I pay $6 a month.

The Record is garbage, I would never pay them. Local journalism is great, but The Record is awful. They barely do any worthwhile journalism, a lot of the paper is just crap that Metroland Media/Torstar pushes out to all their subsidiary papers or generic press releases they pretend are articles. The greedy paywall is a complete turn off as well, there are better ways to provide good journalism without both preventing potential readers from reading anything, but also begging them for money at the same time.

Whether you like the record or not, we MUST find a different business model for journalism...the current system is seriously broken, and I don't think paywalls, or guilt tripping, or anything like that is going to fix it.

[robdrimmie]

The Record's mobile app was updated after their acquisition and has pretty solid organization, all the sections are updated, the full articles are available. There are some ads, but a paid subscription is not required.

I started my digital subscription recently after a hire I view as a positive sign and am really considering a physical subscription mostly for my kids. I grew up reading (and delivering) The Record and they read The Good News from the Working Centre sometime. I think there's less physical waste than the terrible flyers that actually support the paper and figure maybe if I pay they might wind that down, or at least I won't feel as concerned about the consequences of advocating for that litter to be considered as such.

[creative]

Or support local journalism. I think I pay $6 a month.

The Record is garbage, I would never pay them. Local journalism is great, but The Record is awful. They barely do any worthwhile journalism, a lot of the paper is just crap that Metroland Media/Torstar pushes out to all their subsidiary papers or generic press releases they pretend are articles. The greedy paywall is a complete turn off as well, there are better ways to provide good journalism without both preventing potential readers from reading anything, but also begging them for money at the same time.

Can you share your ideas with us?

[tomh009]

The Record is garbage, I would never pay them. Local journalism is great, but The Record is awful. They barely do any worthwhile journalism, a lot of the paper is just crap that Metroland Media/Torstar pushes out to all their subsidiary papers or generic press releases they pretend are articles. The greedy paywall is a complete turn off as well, there are better ways to provide good journalism without both preventing potential readers from reading anything, but also begging them for money at the same time.

Whether you like the record or not, we MUST find a different business model for journalism...the current system is seriously broken, and I don't think paywalls, or guilt tripping, or anything like that is going to fix it.

Paywalls can work, at least for some newspapers. NYT has over 6M online subscribers. No, it's not the same as the Record.

But, ac3r, if you really hate the Record's content anyway, the paywall should be a non-issue for you as there is nothing there for you to look at.

I am somewhat mystified that the mobile app does not require a subscription. Is it intentional, or have they just not got it implemented yet?

[ac3r]

The Record is garbage, I would never pay them. Local journalism is great, but The Record is awful. They barely do any worthwhile journalism, a lot of the paper is just crap that Metroland Media/Torstar pushes out to all their subsidiary papers or generic press releases they pretend are articles. The greedy paywall is a complete turn off as well, there are better ways to provide good journalism without both preventing potential readers from reading anything, but also begging them for money at the same time.

Whether you like the record or not, we MUST find a different business model for journalism...the current system is seriously broken, and I don't think paywalls, or guilt tripping, or anything like that is going to fix it.

I like the approach The Guardian uses. Their web conent content is all free (so, the vast majority of their news - yet they also publish physically, but they make sure the published versions contain some print exclusive material), so to generate revenue they just politely ask every so often if you'd like to either make a one time donation to help or buy a subscription. I'm not sure such an approach could work for The Record, given its size and readership (The Guardian is one the biggest papers in the UK and internationally), but I suppose that illustrates why high quality local journalism is a good thing - if you have that, you can draw in subscribers. Most objection I hear to The Record mirrors mine: it just isn't worth giving money to and their hard paywall can put you off considering it even if you want to check out what they have.

[robdrimmie]

I am somewhat mystified that the mobile app does not require a subscription. Is it intentional, or have they just not got it implemented yet?

I am on iOS and haven't looked at the Android app at all. I am speculating, but my guess is they would rather let a few people get it for free than deal with Apple's rules around payments and subscriptions.

[robdrimmie]

I suppose that illustrates why high quality local journalism is a good thing - if you have that, you can draw in subscribers.

I'm very interested in a source for this assertion that is deeper than you speculating. I take no issue with the speculation, but it conflicts with my understanding of the industry and I'd like to update my knowledge.

[danbrotherston]

I suppose that illustrates why high quality local journalism is a good thing - if you have that, you can draw in subscribers.

I'm very interested in a source for this assertion that is deeper than you speculating. I take no issue with the speculation, but it conflicts with my understanding of the industry and I'd like to update my knowledge.

I agree, unfortunately, like many things in capitalism, a quality product is not sufficient for success.

I do like the Guardian's positioning, but I wouldn't like having to read a physical paper to get some news, ultimately, I want as little paper in my life as possible.

[GarthDanlor]

Whether you like the record or not, we MUST find a different business model for journalism...the current system is seriously broken, and I don't think paywalls, or guilt tripping, or anything like that is going to fix it.

I like the approach The Guardian uses. Their web conent content is all free (so, the vast majority of their news - yet they also publish physically, but they make sure the published versions contain some print exclusive material), so to generate revenue they just politely ask every so often if you'd like to either make a one time donation to help or buy a subscription. I'm not sure such an approach could work for The Record, given its size and readership (The Guardian is one the biggest papers in the UK and internationally), but I suppose that illustrates why high quality local journalism is a good thing - if you have that, you can draw in subscribers. Most objection I hear to The Record mirrors mine: it just isn't worth giving money to and their hard paywall can put you off considering it even if you want to check out what they have.

I'm very interested in a source for this assertion that is deeper than you speculating. I take no issue with the speculation, but it conflicts with my understanding of the industry and I'd like to update my knowledge.

I agree, unfortunately, like many things in capitalism, a quality product is not sufficient for success.

I do like the Guardian's positioning, but I wouldn't like having to read a physical paper to get some news, ultimately, I want as little paper in my life as possible.

I'm a fairly frequent visitor to the UK and one of the joys of my visits is to pick up a paper copy of the Guardian at the train stations or airports to help occupy my journeys.  Their website/app is also my go to source of international news, and they have managed to find a formula on the site that allows for them to break even, or even a little better (though they do have an unusual ownership).  I do ultimately think that there is a market for quality (unbiased & factual) reporting combined with reasoned opinion pieces (be they with a left, centrist or right bent).  Unfortunately, there might be even more of a market for tabloid clickbait trash.

Bottom line is that we need big quality news organizations like The Guardian, The Times, NY Times, Washington Post, The Tor Star, Globe etc. to survive as war zone reporting and deep investigations like Watergate are Cambridge Analytica are costly endeavors and can't be done effectively by DIY podcasters.  We also need as many voices as possible to counter the myriad daily untruths of corporations and politicians like Trump (and many others).   I imagine the biggies like the Guardian et al. will find a way to survive but we also need the smaller, local and, perhaps, more mediocre papers like The Record (to survive).  Local reporting isn't usually "sexy" so I think they will have a much tougher job to attract or even to hang on to customers.  To me $6 per month is a fair price to keep The Record and others like it going...it's the cost of 1 Starbucks' latte!  Unfortunately, however, the days of these smaller papers seem to be numbered and I think we will regret it when they are gone.

[Acitta]

There is now a MUT on Mill St. running from Ottawa to Courtland and connecting to the Courtland MUT.

[tomh009]

I am somewhat mystified that the mobile app does not require a subscription. Is it intentional, or have they just not got it implemented yet?

I am on iOS and haven't looked at the Android app at all. I am speculating, but my guess is they would rather let a few people get it for free than deal with Apple's rules around payments and subscriptions.

I don't think that's it. I am also on iOS, and the G&M and Economist apps control access based on your offline subscriptions. And many TV channels, such as TSN and Sportsnet, also control access based on your cable subscription.

[danbrotherston]

I am on iOS and haven't looked at the Android app at all. I am speculating, but my guess is they would rather let a few people get it for free than deal with Apple's rules around payments and subscriptions.

I don't think that's it. I am also on iOS, and the G&M and Economist apps control access based on your offline subscriptions. And many TV channels, such as TSN and Sportsnet, also control access based on your cable subscription.

But do those same services offer you the opportunity to sign up for the service through the app using apple pay (and giving apple a 30% cut).

This was the fundamental issue that services seemed to have with the apple TOS...which Epic games took the nuclear option on.

[panamaniac]

There is now a MUT on Mill St. running from Ottawa to Courtland and connecting to the Courtland MUT.

Not sure where you mean.  Mill St runs parallel to Courtland.

[dtkvictim]

There is now a MUT on Mill St. running from Ottawa to Courtland and connecting to the Courtland MUT.

Not sure where you mean.  Mill St runs parallel to Courtland.

I was confused by this too. Apparently Mill continues east of Ottawa, slightly to the north. I assume he means that section has a MUT now.

[danbrotherston]

There is now a MUT on Mill St. running from Ottawa to Courtland and connecting to the Courtland MUT.

Not sure where you mean.  Mill St runs parallel to Courtland.

Mill runs parallel to Courtland, but through the magic of Waterloo Region roads, they do in fact intersect.

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Mill+St...4258?hl=en

The thing to understand is that in our region, this geometric impossibility not only occurs, but is the norm, Westmount/F-H (twice in fact, once as Bearinger Rd). University and Lexington, and University and Northfield, and University and Erb, Frederick and Victoria, Queen and Highland, Ottawa and Bleams, and of course the infamous, King and Weber. There are many others. After living here, the idea of a grid network of roads, just doesn't appeal to me anymore...