[wooster]

A subscription to the New York Times costs $769.60 per year. A good chunk of that is printing and delivery costs for something I don't want anyway: a giant stack of physical paper. On top of the odd environmental disconnect of shipping a whole tree's worth of paper to each individual customer in tiny chunks every day over a year, there's the disconnect of customers paying to have advertising delivered to them.

How they expect people to pay for that in a world where I can read their best articles online for free is totally beyond me.

What I would like to see is:

- An iPad version of the full paper (not just the selections they have now).

- No advertising.

- A price reflective of the reduced printing and delivery costs. I don't want to subsidize the physical paper subscriptions of other people.

- Fast search and access to the archives from within the iPad app.

Then again, as long as the web site remains free (although hobbled by advertising and splitting articles across pages), I doubt the iPad app would get much traction. You never know though.

Also, with all that said, I don't live in New York. For my local paper (the San Francisco Chronicle) to warrant me subscribing, they'd need to start doing some real journalism. For example, they could look at the city and state government. In a budget crisis, you'd think there would be plenty of material to use. The milquetoast reporting they currently practice isn't worth any of my money.

[psyklic]

You're telling the papers to: (1) Get rid of their largest revenue stream (advertising), and (2) Increase spending (more reporters).

How does that work?

[Groxx]

By (3) reducing costs by eliminating the need for a massive amount of the company.

I'd be surprised beyond belief if it turns out they paid their reporting wing of the company more than they (collectively) paid their printing and distribution wings. And remember that the distribution includes all shipments US / worldwide, and all end-point delivery people.

[wooster]

I'm telling them to get rid of their biggest cost: printing and distribution.

Also, I'm not saying they should get rid of the classifieds section, which is a big chunk (about half? hard to find any data on it) of their advertising income.

As for reporters: they're cheap. In the range of $40-100k (from quick Google search) a year for a New York Times reporter. Much less at other papers. Hire 10 reporters to dig into corruption, waste, and fraud in San Francisco and I'd be happy to plunk down a subscription fee.

[Tichy]

"Hire 10 reporters to dig into corruption, waste, and fraud"

Isn't that actually the job of the police?

[rabidgnat]

The police investigates crimes that have already been observed. Journalists have the freedom to investigate potential crimes based on their gut feeling. Recall Enron - a police officer standing anywhere in Headquarters would have missed a crime. However, some pesky reporters asking too many questions brought the whole operation to its knees.

[mikecane]

>>>Isn't that actually the job of the police?

What? No. Police are not investigators. They are there to arrest -- or use force -- period. They are intake and barriers, not processing.

[rbrcurtis]

I used to believe that the IT department at my work didn't need more than 10 programmers.

[drinian]

I agree with you, except perhaps on the "no advertising" bit. Advertising often serves a useful purpose in a community. How to translate to the Web, I'm not sure.

[tinio]

For an alternative news source in the Bay Area, take a look at http://www.baycitizen.org