End of a good run, My Last Newspaper

[TurfMonkey]

Old school and inefficient yes. I have been getting the Charlotte Observer and Hickory Daily Record for decades.
Rain, sleet, snow, they were always on my driveway. Recently received word that HDR is going to 3 days a week and
both are discontinuing delivery. It's USPS from mid June on. I am not expecting to renew. Was loyal to the print industry
as long as I could. The Sunday Paper in the Mailbox Monday is the deal breaker.
Scott

[BambooRdApp]

That's too bad. Used to get the HDR when we lived in Hickory..and CO just on Sundays.
With that said, I may not have held a hard copy newspaper in my hands in over a decade. When we moved back to Raleigh from LAX in 2012, we did not renew the Raleigh N&O.

[scatman77]

We had a weekly paper and also The Herald. I stopped the weekly when it combined with its sister weekly (from our big rivals!) and it would be only 25% articles about York. Then the Herald.....first their high school beat reporter who was the absolute best passed due to illness. Then there was a home basketball game, the ONLY game in the county that night and against a Rock Hill school. They sent no one and requested emailed stats and a quote. We did and there was neither of them in the paper the next day. I said "bye bye" and never looked back.

[appdaze]

They also charge far too much for basic access to online material. When you have national new services like The Athletic for 1.99\month, Washington post base plan for $120 a year, I can't justify paying a local paper $11 a month for HDR. CO is $16 a month. Its just too much.

[pop5app]

It’s a sad day, for me too. I find myself reading the morning paper except it’s a cell phone now

[Stonewall]

I learned to read from newsprint , and cereal boxes . I suppose it's for the best as you can't believe either one these days.

[bigdaddyg]

In Fayetteville we had the Observer in the morning and the Times at night. We got both when I was young. As a Reds fan I waited for the evening paper to arrive so that I could find out if they won a game played the night before on the west coast. Seems crazy now to get a morning paper and half of the scores from the night before were not available yet.

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

I get the Greensboro paper online only. Most of the content is from the W-S Journal, which frustrates me. A shame the HDR can't stay at a few pages 7 days a week. Berkshire Hathaway should have set all these papers up in NC as a community trust non-profit. That would not solve all of their problems but Lee Enterprises is bleeding them dry and just trying to extract what little profit it can without making any attempt to be a newspaper. In Greensboro a free weekly is trying to take over the void left from not really having any local coverage.

There will start being more scandals in even smaller places like Hickory, Morganton and everyone is going to complain about the scandals and yet not enough are willing to support local media that could investigate and keep the powers that be in check.

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

I learned to read from newsprint , and cereal boxes . I suppose it's for the best as you can't believe either one these days.

What newspapers are wholesale in "Can't believe" column? I don't care for some local papers editorial slant and what that choose to not report on, but the problem was more about omission and inclusion of lies.

[t4pizza]

I get the Greensboro paper online only. Most of the content is from the W-S Journal, which frustrates me. A shame the HDR can't stay at a few pages 7 days a week. Berkshire Hathaway should have set all these papers up in NC as a community trust non-profit. That would not solve all of their problems but Lee Enterprises is bleeding them dry and just trying to extract what little profit it can without making any attempt to be a newspaper. In Greensboro a free weekly is trying to take over the void left from not really having any local coverage.

There will start being more scandals in even smaller places like Hickory, Morganton and everyone is going to complain about the scandals and yet not enough are willing to support local media that could investigate and keep the powers that be in check.

So true, local print media keeps local politicians as honest as they can be. When nobody is around to report on what is going on, the corruptive influence of power is too great for too many to ignore.

[mike87]

I learned to read from newsprint , and cereal boxes . I suppose it's for the best as you can't believe either one these days.

Cereal boxes are still pretty reliable.

[BambooRdApp]

Some of the topics on Capt N Crunch is literary genius...

[Cro-Magnon App]

The newspapers have themselves to blame for their own demise.

[bigdaddyg]

Did print newspapers simply become too expensive in general? The access of information on the internet obviously made a great impact as people have been able to get access to information quickly and basically most don't want to take the time to read or purchase printed material. I had not purchased our local paper for years and happened to pick one up in a gas station a while back. I could not believe how much it cost and how much smaller it had gotten.

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Did print newspapers simply become too expensive in general? The access of information on the internet obviously made a great impact as people have been able to get access to information quickly and basically most don't want to take the time to read or purchase printed material. I had not purchased our local paper for years and happened to pick one up in a gas station a while back. I could not believe how much it cost and how much smaller it had gotten.

Newsprint is not cheap from my understanding. Transportation can't be cheap as it is a heavy product when packed in a truck.

Ad revenue is the likely culprit. Some of the ads Google and other sites serve are local and would have been spent on newsprint ads. So newspapers raise subscription fees to offset the lost ad revenue and that drives more readers away which also lower ad revenue since the audience is smaller.

Newspapers need to be set up as a non-profit to do their job as the 4th estate.

[CVAPP]

In Hickory the local papers were acquired by larger publishing companies and became irrelevant as these larger interests cared not for local news, Their only concern was local ad revenue. I have no mercy for them but I find it a shame.

[BurkeGrad]

Old school and inefficient yes. I have been getting the Charlotte Observer and Hickory Daily Record for decades.
Rain, sleet, snow, they were always on my driveway. Recently received word that HDR is going to 3 days a week and
both are discontinuing delivery. It's USPS from mid June on. I am not expecting to renew. Was loyal to the print industry
as long as I could. The Sunday Paper in the Mailbox Monday is the deal breaker.
Scott

Happening across western N.C. The Morganton News Herald owned possibly by the same media group as HDR also going from 6 to 3 days (Tu, Th, Sat) and delivery by USPS. Sports news now can be 3 days old. I’ll read about Monday evening games on Thursdays if I don’t cancel my subscription. A digital subscription is available at a price.

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Lee Enterprises has this list of newspapers to run in the ground in North Carolina. Most along I-40 form Marion to Greensboro with Concord and Mooresville added in. Most came to Lee from Berkshire Hathaway.

NORTH CAROLINA
Greensboro News and Record
Greensboro • greensboro.com

Hickory Daily Record
Hickory • hickoryrecord.com

Independent Tribune
Concord • independenttribune.com

Winston-Salem Journal
Winston-Salem • journalnow.com

McDowell News
Marion • mcdowellnews.com

Mooresville Tribune
Mooresville • mooresvilletribune.com

News Herald
Morganton • morganton.com

Statesville Record and Landmark
Statesville • statesville.com

[NewApp]

Did print newspapers simply become too expensive in general? The access of information on the internet obviously made a great impact as people have been able to get access to information quickly and basically most don't want to take the time to read or purchase printed material. I had not purchased our local paper for years and happened to pick one up in a gas station a while back. I could not believe how much it cost and how much smaller it had gotten.

Newsprint is not cheap from my understanding. Transportation can't be cheap as it is a heavy product when packed in a truck.

Ad revenue is the likely culprit. Some of the ads Google and other sites serve are local and would have been spent on newsprint ads. So newspapers raise subscription fees to offset the lost ad revenue and that drives more readers away which also lower ad revenue since the audience is smaller.

Newspapers need to be set up as a non-profit to do their job as the 4th estate.

Why should newspapers be singled out for non-profit? What should be taxed in their stead?.

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Did print newspapers simply become too expensive in general? The access of information on the internet obviously made a great impact as people have been able to get access to information quickly and basically most don't want to take the time to read or purchase printed material. I had not purchased our local paper for years and happened to pick one up in a gas station a while back. I could not believe how much it cost and how much smaller it had gotten.

Newsprint is not cheap from my understanding. Transportation can't be cheap as it is a heavy product when packed in a truck.

Ad revenue is the likely culprit. Some of the ads Google and other sites serve are local and would have been spent on newsprint ads. So newspapers raise subscription fees to offset the lost ad revenue and that drives more readers away which also lower ad revenue since the audience is smaller.

Newspapers need to be set up as a non-profit to do their job as the 4th estate.

Why should newspapers be singled out for non-profit? What should be taxed in their stead?.

Actually I am not fond of non-profits as an entity and would be willing to get rid of them so we could tax the hell out of churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques, but if we have non-profits I think setting up newspapers for the good of the community as a non-profit is a good of a reason as anything for a non-profit.

Newspapers are what broke Watergate and so many other scandals. Cities even as small as Hickory and Morganton can have enough corruption that someone needs to keep an eye on the local power structure. If having newspapers be set up as a non-profit and not beholden to stockholders then all the better.