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How can we make it worth it? OUCH! We can defend ourselves on the initial question but to be told that The News-Reporter's content is not worth 63¢ a week at our new online subscription rate hurts just a little bit. The Augusta Chronicle, The Athens Banner-Herald, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, USA Today, and other daily newspapers are indeed free to view online. But The News-Reporter is not the same product as those large dailies. Just because we are all newspapers doesn't mean everything else is the same. That would be like saying that Pop-Lahr Possibilities (on The Square) is the same as Macy's, or Dillard's, or even Wal-Mart just because they are all stores. The truth is, Pop-Lahr is unique to this community - you can't get what you get there at any of those big stores. And so it is with The News- Reporter. You won't find Camille McAvoys' birthday write-up and picture in any other newspaper. If you read only other newspapers, you might never know that Twin Oak Baptist Church is celebrating its 122nd anniversary this Sunday. Reports of actions taken by our County Commission, City Councils, and Board of Education are found nowhere else. How else would you know that the Chamber of Commerce thanked local firefighters Ryan Burton, Tim Wright, Greg Scott, and Kevin Tucker for their assistance in raising funds for the fireworks show on the Fourth of July. And what other newspaper would brag that the Wildcats soccer team went undefeated and allowed only one goal this season? (Thanks to the parent who sent that in.) The News-Reporter is unique to this community - you can't get what you get here at any of those big papers. We run virtually anything anyone brings us because we feel that if they think it is important enough to be in the paper, so do we (of course, certain rules and deadlines have to apply). Our goal is to promote the people, affairs, and events of Wilkes County while recording an accurate account of the news as we can gather it. Those big papers are big enough to include regional and national news and therefore they can attract regional and national advertisers. You also have to "register" and thereby give them your email address which opens you up to all kinds of spam. That's what pays for their "free" online access. We don't have the luxury of national advertising and we don't exploit our lists of subscribers. Our staff and our revenues are small. Besides, people have always been willing to pay for the print edition and there are significant expenses involved in producing the online edition just as there are with the hard copy. Of all the community newspapers similar in size that we know of, most are available online by subscription. In fact, most initiated online subscriptions long before we did. We held out as long as we could because we know the importance of having our content available online. And there are definite advantages. Anna Norman, who lives in Alabama and does quite a bit of travelling, can read her hometown news on publication day just like people in Washington. Otherwise, she would have to be at home waiting for her paper to arrive - and sometimes the postal service takes as much as three weeks to deliver out-of-county.
Still, we wonder what Mr. Burton would have us do to make the paper worth buying. We are certainly open to suggestions from him and anyone else and we are willing to do anything we can to make The News-Reporter better.
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