Last December, I submitted a letter expressing my primary motivation for subscribing to the Herald. It revolved around the morning crossword puzzle and Jumble, as the heavily-skewed liberal reporting and editorial content proved to be of zero value to me.
Now, we get notice from the publisher that the paper is forced to cut back its print service by 43 percent each week to only four days a week beginning April 1. We also get notice that as a result of this, the subscription rate will not be reduced at all and will remain the same as if we were getting the paper seven days a week.
Now, if this is the Ballantine’s definition of “fair and balanced” (get 43 percent less print service for your subscription fees, yet please pay the same amount for the paper), than I want nothing more to do with it.
The reality here is that the paper cannot afford to publish a newspaper seven days a week and is trying to migrate to a subscription and ad-based “e-newspaper strategy” to save itself. La Plata County is surrounded by red counties of Montezuma, Archuleta, Dolores and also Conejos, Rio Grande, Hinsdale and Mineral. I personally know many conservatives in all these rural areas (including La Plata) that want nothing to do with the paper due to the extremely biased reporting.
Perhaps if the Herald tried to be just a little more balanced in its reporting and editorials, its subscriber base in La Plata and surrounding counties would grow, as would revenues, and it would not be “financially forced” to cut back print services while requiring subscribers to pay the same subscription fees as they were when getting a paper every day.
To this end, I am afraid I am preaching upon deaf ears, so here is the ongoing saga of a diminishing Herald. First, it was a reduced print “paper size” to save money, now it is a reduced print service to save money, yet prices for subscribers remain the same.
Good luck, as these snowballs typically only get bigger as they roll downhill.
Tod Patterson
Durango
