Though I say I haven't fully decided, by my behaviour it seems I'm going to other alternatives that do not cost me anything.
Anyway, would like to know fellow Winnipeggers' thoughts on this topic!
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It was my daily habit to check the WFP, G&M and the other speciality websites every morning and evening.
Now I skip the WFP entirely. Not sure what I'll replace it with yet.
The Free Press is run by grey haired old men who don't understand the newspaper business, never mind the internet. The Free Press was never in the business of selling news, they were in the business of selling advertising in newspapers. That was their revenue cash cow. Now the internet comes along and they all feel like they now need to make money selling the fucking news. They don't. All that's changed is that the medium and distribution is now free for them, and their potential market has now expanded to 7 billion earthlings. They still need to find creative ways to sell adds to pay their bills. Vice Magazine went from a small Montreal rag to billion dollar business by understanding the internet. But the Free Press is too old and out of ideas to understand any of this. The will perish, and we'll be better off without them. Grab the popcorn and watch the ship sink.
No.
Me not too.
Me too not as well
75% of free press content is from 'Associate Press' and can be found anywhere on the web. There are very few high quality articles (local stories on real issues) and because they are to few and far between, its not worth the price they are trying to charge.
While I would like to support good local journalism, I detest the fact that you have to sign up for an online account before you can see what the prices are. Not even sketchy porn sites do that.
Hey, sorry that was a by-product of some programming choices, but it's since been fixed - http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscribe/
I've had home delivery for years, that being said, the new online format sucks balls.
I'll willing to pay for local journalism, their occasional long-form articles are well worth the cost.
It also helps that the 'online only' and the 'online with dead-tree on Saturday' subscriptions cost the exact same. I can read the paper on my porch like an old man on Saturdays and hunched over a glowing screen the rest of the week.
I'd much rather pay for the actual paper and then after reading start up some paper mache projects.
Nope, i will not support hacks like Jen Zoratti whose writing style and content never evolved past angsty teenager journal entries.
I find it amazing that they have let so many talented young journalists go but they give her space. Or is she just the next in the chain of j-school grads that get hired and dumped after 3 years once they start getting up the wage scale?
good point.
Never
Nope. I detest their web design (makes me throw up in my mouth a little), and find it much too expensive give the plethora of other sources. Not to mention I'm about to be paying them to show me walls of ads.
If I do ever want to view an article from there, I've got a few different ways to get it free.
Edit: I forgot that most of their stuff is AP or CP anyways, which for some reason they think is OK to charge you for as well. Even though every other news outlet has the same damn article, it's kind of a "we'll ding you while you're here, because you're too dumb to notice" thing. That insults my intelligence.
Articles are labelled as from the Canadian/Associated Press on the home page. While the home page varies by user, currently i see 13 articles written by Free Press staff before the first Canadian Press article pops up. That's not counting the extensive Fringe Fest coverage also featured on the front page.
So if you're a stickler for not wasting your money on articles you can get 'free' elsewhere, the WFP has you covered there. No one is insulting your intelligence except you.
Give this one a try and tell me how many AP/CP articles vs WFP articles:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/
Or how about here:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/
And here...
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/travel/
And here.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/
Of course a lot of the local & breaking stuff is going to be WFP articles, but my point is if it's just going to be an aggregate site apart from that, then I'm not paying for those articles out of convenience. It would be like a restaurant charging for a glass of tap water. Yeah, they're delivering it to you, but they pay very little for it and it encourages you to not go elsewhere. But no, they're going to charge you the same as all of the other drinks for throwing an ice cube in it.
E: If they only charged for local content, AND removed the ads for paid subs (and possibly fixed the shitty design), the I might consider A-la-carte.
WFP;DR
I was quite surprised and disappointed that their reviews were behind the paywall too...
Ah well. The Jenny was the source for reviews and then it died, the same can happen to the Press. We just go to the CBC now.
The review source is dead! Long live the review source!
Maybe next year we could do an r/winnipeg review thing...
Hey, that would be cool!
r/Winnipeg Reviews the Fringe!
"I tried to Coal Roll in but I couldn't find a parking spot for my Dodge 1500. Plus there were too many cyclists not on the sidewalks! grrrrrrrr" -NephewSwat204
Nope.
Too much celebrity this, celebrity that, and uncritical recital of news releases.
Under the bus with them.
I subscribe to the e-edition.
I won't pay for it. I just delete my cookies for the site if the login screen pops up - then I'm good to go. Same thing works for the Winnipeg Sun too when they tell you you've reached your 10 article limit.
I've been using the pay per article thing. Works as advertised. If it's just a wire article or whatever, I'll get it elsewhere.
I already pay for home delivery and still refuse to log into the WFP site.
I'm considering it because I am a news junkie, I wouldn't post links here tho because not everyone can read them.
copy paste man, do us all a solid
I don't subscribe so instead I went with the pay-per-view version where it's 27 cents an article.
No.
I wouldn't mind an online-only subscription (no Saturday paper - I'm not buzzing someone into the apartment building every Saturday morning at 5 AM) but I resent paying as much for it as the online + Saturday paper option.
No.
Not a chance
nope.
No
LOLNO
I bought a subscription + Saturday paper - I don't mind paying for news and their editorial content is far better and insightful than the other dailies, in my opinion.
I've been paying for the online edition for about a year and a half now. It's important to me that the Free Press continues existing and that they don't cut back any further, and the only things I can do about that are subscribing and spreading the word.
It's good if you want to read up on the Kar-Trashians. They seem to have lots of articles about them.
That's actually a downside of thr way our feeds work unfortunately. Be assured that we're working on an option to suppress sections. Kind of like reddit gold actually.
I am probably in the minority. I pay for a 6 day subscription, so my online access is included. I think it's important to support local news.
Edit: the online version on my android tablet works flawlessly.
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What's the extension called?
Instead of trusting a random extension you can use this user script I wrote.
I had a Saturday sub that I was going to let lapse, but the Freep lured me with a $10/mo 3 day a week sub that includes full website access. I signed up for 6 months and I'll keep paying that rate, but once they stop extending that deal, it's over.
I'm a longtime Free Press reader and the paper's news coverage has declined brutally over the years. The only part that hasn't is their sports, which is a pathetic statement for a news organ. I didn't count to be sure, but I'm pretty sure that there are more reporters covering the Jets than the Legislature and City Hall combined.
I've noticed that too but their investigative reporting is still great. That Kives article on the land swaps for BRT is good work.
I would love to pay a reasonable amount for Winnipeg, Canadian, and world news. To be able to comment. Winnipeg free Press provides a vey small number of articles. The minimum they could provide is links to other newspapers in their ownership group- but unfortunately they also offer limited news.
fuck no
Nah, dont care enough for the news that much, I was a daily checker though.
no, but i also won't be bypassing the paywall either. I haven't really missed it yet.
I'm excited about the opportunity being presented to other publications to come up as the free press becomes irrelevant.
LOL No.
It's pretty much a boycott for me with The Freep, so no. I will not comply to their greedy and misguided business model. The moment that trial expired, I stopped using The Free Press.
I'll miss using it. The site was my go to for my daily news. When they changed the design leading up to the paywall, that's when the disconnect started. Sad how things turned out the way it is now, but it is what it is now, with the lame-ass Buzzfeed/Diply/clickbait bullshit we have to deal with as "news" now.
You should start a poll on this.
Some of the comments here warm the cockles of my heart! <3
That's going to cost you 23 cents per comment please
27 plus applicable taxes
I was giving a deal!
Go back to Braavos.
As long as the Free Press employs this as a sports reporter, I'm not sure there's much worth paying for. And not that there's anything wrong with her, but when the union is driving editorial direction, then why the hell would I read somebody's reluctant reporting? Especially where it comes to sports. Subversive hipsterdom and professional sports are nearly definitively at odds.
It's a dead business model. Be done with it and let's move on.
Referring to Ms. Martin as a "this" is highly offensive, no matter what you think of her writing on the sports beat.
I completely disagree with you that "this" is offensive. In today's day and age with gender fluidity being what it is, I think "this" is really the most polite way to refer to someone without fear of being mistaken.
I love this comment.
LoL, "gender fluidity". The ever-sacrosanct around here have a difficult time keeping up with what offends them day-to-day so they've defaulted to everything.
Seriously though, can you honestly say she's not a pre-op transsexual based on that photo? I can't and I'd be scared to get it wrong for fear of ending up on the cover of the paper as some insensitive cad....
Not that someones outward appearance should dictate how we address them but it's human nature to categorize people based on how they look and anthropology just isn't catching up to tumblr as fast as it should be.
Even with gender fluidity, "this" really dehumanizes the person. Instead replace it with "this person". Simple and with no fear of being mistaken for an asshole
Well now I'm offended you'd consider me an asshole and not a bitch!
I'm referring to the aesthetic and what it signals. The person is irrelevant. If Lemmy from Motorhead were writing about sports, I would post a picture of his ridiculous get up. Much in the same way I would post a picture of David Brooks if the union mandated he write about the local metal scene.
If that's highly offensive, then you're overly sensitive.
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And here we have yet another example of a double standard when it comes to how we treat men and women.
The comment referring to the aesthetic of this odd looking female generates a large number of downvotes, with people jumping to her defense. The comment calling the guy out for being fat gets upvotes. I happen to agree that she looks weird and that he's fat, I just find the response to having that pointed out to be quite interesting.
Let's keep up the good work Winnipeg. Consistency is key!
Yeah, but Gary Lawless is a white man and as such has privilege, you see. As such, he should be derided as the privileged white man that he is because he has only made his name by exerting that privilege like a spell. He hasn't even worked for anything. He just showed up and they were like: "Hey! White male! You're in." If you're a white male and you're not familiar with this, then you're obviously running in the wrong circles. It's literally that easy.
Ha! It's the aesthetic that I can't square. She's a hell of a writer, but it would be a reach to have Lawless writing about feminist issues and it's an equally ridiculous reach to expect that anybody would take her seriously as a sports writer. Especially when her columns are so drastically different from her beat.
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That's interesting. You have no idea what I know about sports, do you?
On the other hand, Melissa Martin is a feminist troll mandated to cover sports by the union she pays dues to and doesn't know the first thing about any of them. Or how to dress like an adult professional, for that matter. I don't think there are many parallels between Melissa Martin and Chuck Klosterman, but I applaud your reach.
Anyway, there are all kinds of places you can do your white-knight feminist trolling around here. If I said she was as ugly as Chuck Klosterman, would your sensitivities restore themselves? I'm not going to take your bait, but surely you can do better than trying to compare the ingenious writings of somebody like Chuck Klosterman to a hack troll like Melissa Martin. I can assure you you'll find a better place to work out your contrived outrage than with me.
I mean I cannot even see her balls in that picture. Clearly she cannot sports.
Doris Burke is one of the best commentators the NBA has right now. What's between your legs is irrelevant, it's what's in your head that matters and she flat out lacks the subject matter expertise to write columns on sports.
The patriarchy isn't hiding in every corner, sometimes people just suck at the job they're being forced to do. This is one of those cases.
Out come the dog-whistlers!
My position is clear. I don't interact with knee-jerk feminists. Thanks.
Your position on interacting with feminists is clear....or your position on the reporter? Because if it was on the reporter, it was not really that clear before your edit. Also if you plan on saying awful things about women without being clear, I feel like you kind of want to be interacting with knee-jerky feminists, maybe subconsciously. Also I feel very honoured because you are the first person ever to call me a feminist. I'm going to celebrate now.
A) My position is clear from my other posts - keep reading.
B) "Awful things about women" - she's a terrible sports journalist because she openly holds professional sporting culture in contempt. Again, you'll need to be able to critically think this whole thing through. That requires putting aside what you'd prefer to read into things. Make that effort.
C) Please show me wherein my original comment I even address feminism. I put up a picture of a somebody who looks like they're busy popping molly before heading into an anime convention as commentary on the dissonance between what they cover and why it's obviously ridiculous (not to mention her other writings), and immediately it's me calling a woman less qualified to speak on sports? Her appearance is that of a 14 year-old. If she wants to be taken seriously writing about anything, she may want to present herself a little more professionally. That's life. Nothing in there has anything to do with being a woman. It has everything to do with acting like a professional.