I was going to write a short, although sarcastic, piece about yet another image of the Virgin Mary appearing in a doctor's window in Springfield, MA. I found this via Google News. I was taken to the Boston Globe's website and landed at the article which described the turn of events. I had hoped to see a picture of the image, instead the lead image above the text of the article was that of a crowd of awe-inspired onlookers.
After examining the page for a few seconds I found the image gallery for this particular news event. It consisted of six images that recounted a few other Virgin Mary image sightings in varying settings.
Here's where it got interesting, and is the real point of this post. Being at the final image in the series I wasn't sure if the first image in the series was the one that the article referred to. So I clicked on what I expected should take me to the first image in the series.
But I didn't get to look at it. Instead, I was prompted to login. Lame . . .
There's been no shortage of news that conventional news outlets are losing profits. Even the local paper where I live has raised their rates citing increased costs. Has your local newspaper raised their rates lately?
Previously when I linked to local news stories I also had to add that they still hadn't quite gotten used to the fact that they really should consider NOT forcing people to login just to read the news article. Perhaps they got the message. You can read the news without logging in. Of course they did re-design their site and improve it such that they can now load even more ads of which some are really, really ugly. How many ads does the online version of your paper have?
As much as "The Press" wants to throw around the adage that "the people have a right to know" you would think that they would be able to wrap their head around the fact that they shouldn't need to login to exercise that right. Do you have to login for any particular function of your local paper? To read the article or view photographs?
Local news outlets just aren't getting it. They don't understand the Internet and much like the music industry, they are clinging to a dying model in which they grossly overcharge for classifieds and ad space on their online and print versions. Have you paid for a classified ad lately? How much was it? Did it actually pay off for you?
I think this topic deserves a little more research and will most likely be something I'll post about again in the near future. Anything you think deserves mentioning?
After examining the page for a few seconds I found the image gallery for this particular news event. It consisted of six images that recounted a few other Virgin Mary image sightings in varying settings.
Here's where it got interesting, and is the real point of this post. Being at the final image in the series I wasn't sure if the first image in the series was the one that the article referred to. So I clicked on what I expected should take me to the first image in the series.
But I didn't get to look at it. Instead, I was prompted to login. Lame . . .
There's been no shortage of news that conventional news outlets are losing profits. Even the local paper where I live has raised their rates citing increased costs. Has your local newspaper raised their rates lately?
Previously when I linked to local news stories I also had to add that they still hadn't quite gotten used to the fact that they really should consider NOT forcing people to login just to read the news article. Perhaps they got the message. You can read the news without logging in. Of course they did re-design their site and improve it such that they can now load even more ads of which some are really, really ugly. How many ads does the online version of your paper have?
As much as "The Press" wants to throw around the adage that "the people have a right to know" you would think that they would be able to wrap their head around the fact that they shouldn't need to login to exercise that right. Do you have to login for any particular function of your local paper? To read the article or view photographs?
Local news outlets just aren't getting it. They don't understand the Internet and much like the music industry, they are clinging to a dying model in which they grossly overcharge for classifieds and ad space on their online and print versions. Have you paid for a classified ad lately? How much was it? Did it actually pay off for you?
I think this topic deserves a little more research and will most likely be something I'll post about again in the near future. Anything you think deserves mentioning?
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