There are two truths everyone must face: Death and taxes.
And here’s another truth: Nothing in this world worth having is free.
Once again, we’re having this debate. Should news be free? It’s the 21st century, and newspapers have been subscription-based for hundreds of years. Although they were pennies on the dollar, there was always a fee to have the newspaper delivered to your home, especially in the case of The Alexander City Outlook. It’s always, and still is, a minimal fee, to be sure.
As time went on and the internet came to be, news moved into a digital platform — just like everything else. For many years, people could receive their news online without paying a fee. Newspapers couldn’t catch up.
It wasn’t until 1997 when the Wall Street Journal started charging a digital subscription fee that paywalls really started to become a thing.
But it’s been almost 30 years since 1997. Isn’t there a statute of limitations for being upset about something?
The Outlook, for example, has been charging for a digital subscription for almost 10 years. Yet, we still have divisive comments day in and day out about how articles, especially those that uncover real issues in the community, should be free to read.
However, I’m here to argue quite the opposite. In fact, I believe you should be expected to pay to read something that affects yourself and your community. Just like you’re expected to pay when you want a service like water or sewer, you should be expected to pay for a service of someone delivering you the news.
Because that’s ultimately what we do.
Let’s take for example a recent Outlook article about major upcoming road projects in Alexander City. The Alabama Department of Transportation is ready to undertake the upgrading of Highway 63, which will cause a major detour for approximately eight months. During this time, ALDOT will also be updating Elkahatchee Road for four to six weeks, downsizing it to one lane. Both projects will coincide.
One comment said the city should be warning residents about these upcoming projects, not The Outlook. I’m here to defend the city: The city government’s Facebook page did, in fact, share the news about the upcoming Elkahatchee Road project. In fact, it shared it a full five days before our article showed up on social media.
Here’s the difference: The city has 5,200 followers on Facebook. The Outlook, on the other hand, has nearly 50,000. That’s almost 10 times the audience, which means a post shared on The Outlook carries a lot further than a post on the city’s page.
That’s meant as no offense to the city; that’s just how the Facebook algorithm goes.
But what people don’t understand is what went into getting that story onto The Outlook’s page. The city has someone — paid by taxpayer dollars, mind you — who is paid to make those social media updates. The Outlook, however, has to put in a ton of backwork. That one story involved at least four calls to different ALDOT representatives, back-and-forth emails to acquire a press release and detour map as well as an interview with Mayor Woody Baird about the consequences and benefits of the projects for residents. Several hours of work went into that one seemingly short but very important story.
We aren’t paid by taxpayer dollars. We aren’t paid by the city or Russell Lands or the hospital or anyone else. We are a local business just like hundreds of others in town. Our product is newsgathering. We take the time to sit at city council meetings so you don’t have to. We spend hours at board of education and commission meetings, which include regular follow-ups with our community leaders. We sift through legal documents and court records to deliver you the most important facts of a case.
Sure, much of what we report is public record. And I invite and encourage you to sit in on your city council meetings or your BOE work sessions. But expecting you to sift through the important stuff, make follow up calls, conduct interviews and ask questions then write a book report on the meeting — and do it all for free — well, that would simply be asking too much. Wouldn’t it?
Don’t ask the same of your local newspaper.
Lizi Arbogast Gwin is the managing editor of Tallapoosa Publishers Inc. She can be reached at 434-962-9420 or via email at lizi.gwin@alexcityoutlook.com.
