hey globe

The news of the Boston Globe’s, well the parent company’s, fiscal woes shakes one of the pillars of my morning routine. I love reading the sports section. That sports section has been a formative part of my childhood, heck my life. To reading Peter Gammons on baseball, Michael Holley when we lit up the Boston pages, to Jackie MacMullan’s insightful articles on whatever she choose to write about, Shira Springer’s thoughts about basketball (what a great name, BTW, she should be on NPR with that name, to Bob Ryan’s opinonated shouts across the Boston sport scene (I hardly ever agreed with Mr. Ryan but I enjoy that contrasting opinion).   But there’s more to the globe than that–there’s the comics, the business section, the movie reviews, the Sunday Ideas Section..

So here’s my suggestion–charge for online access. Yep. I’d be willing to fork over some money for online access. Your paid reader ship might go up some because people can’t share that electronic paper (if you do your security right).  Make general information on the site free but charge for more for indepth material that your outstanding staff offers. Basic coverage of the Boston sports scene? Free. Inside the club house articles–ante up. I think more people don’t want a home subscription because they don’t want the hassle of recycling a newspaper. You have to store the paper, carry it out to the curb on trash/recycling day..a physical paper while perferred over an electronic one is not as convenient. I want my Sunday globe in a nice printed form infront of me but the rest of the week? No, I’ll read my selected articles online and never have to worry about what I’m doing to the environment nor haul those papers to the curb.

The printed newspaper is dying and while I’ll mourn it deeply, I am willing to pay to make the new business model work.