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Name: Traverse City Record-Eagle
Age: 153
Occupation: newspaper
Last Seen: Traverse City, MI
Bee-otched For: making you pay
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Man, does the media in my hometown of Traverse City suck.
You've got four TV stations with two common "owners" who limit the viewing choices for viewers up north (just count the daily infomercials on Fox 33-er, 32), the FM band is bombarded with 90 billion repeater stations causing listeners to have fewer listening choices in regard to format, plus, as a rock fan, there's four rock stations that all seem to have a license to play Ted Nugent and Bob Segar at any given time...
...And now, if you want to know what's going on in the Cherry Capitol, ya gotta pay.
Last week, the well-loved newspaper of record in Traverse City, the Record-Eagle started doing something that angered their readers outside of their distribution area: they started charging for content.
That's right! On their webpage, if you click on a story, it will tell readers a brief summarization of it and tell you what page number to turn to in the newspaper edition of the paper. Oh yeah! You can read the paper online via their e-edition which is free for three days, but after that, it's $9.95 per month.
True, you'd get the whole paper online, but the question is, why would anybody want to pay $10 per month to get a lot of the same info you'd get free elsewhere? For an example: comics. Many of the R-E's funnies are available for free on their syndicator's websites (i.e. GoComics.com). Same with movie listings, sports and what-not.
Plus, bear in mind that the R-E isn't the only company doing news in town. Ever hear of UpNorthLive.com, the common website for TV 7&4 and ABC 29&8? Yep, they're not alone.
Point is, the R-E is selling out. I've got too many bills as-is, and I don't need to waste $10 on a paper that recently endorsed a prick like Rick Snyder for governor (he probably paid them to do so, but who knows?). Sorry, but unless they change their ways, I'm going elsewhere for my northern Michigan news.
And I'm writing this on the same day the FCC approves the Comcast/NBC merger. What is this world coming to...
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Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!
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