Effing LA Times

The LA Times website sucks.
I subscribe to the physical newspaper and read it daily. Today I read an article in the paper and wanted to send a link to it my brother.
Going the latimes.com site required me to login, as do many newspaper sites. I resent this, but logged in anyways. I was surprised to find that the article was hidden behind the pay only portion of the site. They wanted me to pay them money to get to a news article on the internet.
You know, fuck that.
It’s enough that I pay money for the physical paper. It’s enough that I log in to the site. It’s enough to endure the relentless ads on the site.
But it’s too much to pay for news on the web.
The LA Times people but have their heads buried way up their rear ends. Go check out Yahoo News or Google News. There’s no barrier to entry to get the news there.
I eagerly await the day when Yahoo or Google print me a customized newspaper nightly and drop it off at my house, replacing the old school and destined to fail LA Times. If I can get the NY Times at my house every morning before the LA Times arrives, I’m sure there’s a place for custom printed newspapers in the near future.
LA Times, wake up or you will find yourself going the way of the typewriter.

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10 thoughts on “Effing LA Times”

  1. I have a Wifi network and a laptop. I like to check the news sitting in my couch each morning with a cup of coffee in hand.
    What is this “paper” thing you speak of? I heard it is made from dead trees.

  3. I can’t disagree that the L.A. Times should have some way to allow access to archived stories to paying customers. But look at things from their perspective.
    Let’s say you have millions of dollars. You use your money to hire reporters, editors, photographers, and then you send them around the world to collect news. You then publish this news online and millions of people come to look at it.
    These people use your bandwidth, your servers and your technical resources to view all of your news. They do not pay you anything while they do this.
    Is that right? Is it OK for you to place ads on the site so that you can try to recoup some of your costs? Is it OK to make people register so that you know something about them and can target the ads and charge a reasonable CPM?
    If people don’t realize that all of this stuff costs money and aren’t willing to pay for it, guess what? Your access to all of that free news — and Google is just a place that effectively aggregates other people’s news, and Yahoo! gets much of its news from the Associated Press, an organization that would not exist without its member newspapers — will go the way of the typewriter.

  4. I bet you that’s the next thing – RSS in print. Customized newspapers… The paper boy straps an inkjet printer to his bike and it spits out the customized news and ads as fast as he can toss ’em to the welcome mats!(Liked your essay ‘I’m a Publisher’)

  5. News Flash: LA Times Sucks

    Caryn points out that Michael is echoing some earlier comments about just how much the L.A. Time’s online content policies suck ass. He says: I subscribe to the physical newspaper and read it daily. Today I read an article in…

  6. I’ve always been thankful that the Houston Chronicle at least gives us the latest news for free. Some extra fluff is buried behind a “pay only” barrier, but not the important stuff.

  7. The real problem with the LA Times charging is that they ONLY charge for arts news, and not for anything else. The arts section is under another heading called “calendar live”, and is a paid area. My gallery has a review coming out on Friday and I can’t send out a link to my mailing list because they won’t be allowed to access the article.
    This started last summer. I wrote them and complained and they blew me off. I actually think it will hurt them, so it should be just a matter of time before the novelty wears off and they come to their senses. Or am I crazy, and are people really paying for this?

  8. They’ve probably made Calendar Live a pay site because they’ve discovered that this is content people will pay to view. Yes — people are increasingly paying for content on the web.
    The Wall Street Journal is one of the few major newspapers that receives $70 a year for access to their entire site, but other sites are starting to charge for content that is timely, relevant or hard to find.
    You own a gallery — you understand that things cost money. You wouldn’t want people to walk into your place of business and just grab things off the wall because they liked them and because art wants to be free. 🙂

  9. Bryan-
    I don’t think the analogy is correct. I buy the LA Times almost every day at a newsstand. I provide them with timely press releases for my events, and they use that information to make themselves a resource that people want. If the paper had no coverage, who would read it? How do they find out about those things? From us, the providers of culture.
    Besides, they are supported by advertising, not by paid subscriptions, They only use the subscription figures to make themselves more attractive to advertisers.
    FYI, I do an enormous amount of FREE service to the public. Free mailings, free openings, free consulting, artwork review for new artists, etc. Very little art sells in general, but we love what we do. The LA Times is the ONLY daily newspaper that does this, and I think it is stingy and mean.

  10. quit your whining. You don’t pay, you don’t get. No harm, no foul. And the WSJ is pay also for online content and is the best paper in America.

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