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Josiah Gitt would have a fit...of apoplexy at the very least.
The digital, on-line version of the York Daily Record has essentially ceased to be a source of news for actual reading, trading "real news for real people" for an unending barrage of photo galleries of high school events.
I thought the most egregious example of this paywall digital yearbook was the steady stream of prom and graduation galleries last spring....accompanied by an nearly total absence of coverage of School Board meetings at the very time of the year when those bodies are setting 2018-2019 budgets, and, more importantly, setting tax rates.
A search of ydr.com came up empty for any stories about my District's budget. It took a lot of internet searching to probe the District web site and learn that, for the first time in a few years, I would be spared of a tax increase. Maybe I 'm becoming an old crumudgeon but that is what I consider to be "real news"---not a bunch of pictures of giddy teens in their prom finery.
I am four decades past those silly years. My child(ren) more than a decade beyond. There better not be any grandchildren yet. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a ....
This fall is proving no better. Photo galleries and videos of High School Homecomings and Friday Night Football clutter the index page.
DAMMIT, I want to READ!
Not look at picture, not waste time watching movies.
Read.
The muckety mucks at USA Today have determined that every flyover back country community wants to be post-literate.
If I want Facebook, Snapchat, and Instargram I will go there. For free. But I don't and I won't.
And so we are being fed a load of useless hay--for pay.
A dollar a day for drivel.
PT Barnum was right.
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Terrible shame what is happening to small town newspapers all across the country. They are abandoning reporting and journalism to become local 'celebrity' feel good newsletters.
Sign of the times. People who read are becoming very unimportant economically
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It all comes down to the almighty dollar.
There are high personnel costs in sending reporters to cover every municipal meeting (which they did, not so long of "once upon a time") even if those reporters are contractors paid by the column inch.
It doesn't cost much to send one photographer to stand outside a high school dance venue and snap a picture of every couple as they arrive. Put the photos in a scroll-only gallery (no thumbnail index page) and the "news" site is sure to generate a lot of clicks, which translates into ad revenue.
Low cost, high return.
Who wouldn't like that?
Actual readers.
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