What’s in a number?
Quite a bit, especially when it comes to subscription prices for the Kansas City Star.
Take reader Steve Fehr who told former Star reporter and editor Jim Fitzpatrick that he ended his subscription recently after being “offended” by the difference between the print edition – $700 a year, he said – and $200 for digital.
Fitzpatrick agreed, telling Fehr, “They are asking way too much for the printed product – something like $80 a month, although it seems like there is never a set price.”
A year or two back I’d allowed my subscription to lapse and when the Star sales staff finally caught up to me, I basically told them I’d be willing to pay around $150 for a year. At the time they could only allow me a six month package for around $80, so I took it.
Then lo and behold, I got my new subscription invoice – an eye opener – last week.
As in $129.86 for a full year of seven days a week home delivery.
That’s quite a savings over Fehr’s $700 and Fitz’s alarming, eye-popping rate!
Enter KC Confidential movie and travel writer Jack Poessiger…
Poessiger you may recall, is the poster child for infuriatingly bad newspaper deliveries issues.
So how much is Man Jack getting bagged for?
“I just renewed my subscription for 26 weeks for $150.06,” Poessiger says. “They wanted more – they were asking for $184.09 for 26 weeks. They wanted $368.19 for a full year, but I chose the six month option and negotiated it down from there.”
Poessiger’s negotiation technique: “Well, I just called up and cancelled,” he muses. “I know I only saved 30 bucks but it was the principle of the thing. The paper just shrunk and shrunk and shrunk and the price went up as the size went down.”
Time for a little arithmetic…
Poessiger’s “bargain” subscription deal cost him an extra $238.33 for a full year.
Worse yet, he’s paying over 20 bucks more than I am for a full year and getting only six months.
Anybody remember the good old days a few years back when the Star used to bag readers extra for the weekly TV book, special editions of the now defunct business section, the ad laden Thanksgiving day paper and the extra comics on Sundays?
“I got hit up on that last one when I renewed this past February,” Poessiger says. “After I negotiated a different rate and we were done, they said, ‘Would you be interested in the comics section?'”
Any Latin studies survivors out there?
As they used to say in Ancient Rome, caveat emptor!
My dad always subscribed the the Star / Times and I continued until 2 months ago and I canceled. The bill I received prior to canceling was for $402 / year for digital and print. I called and cancelled and sent a letter to Tony Berg stating the reasons for my cancelation. I got a call from his office with a better deal but I declined. After nearly 56 years I no longer received the Star at my home. Then the calls started coming 5-8 a day to get me back. I considered this harassment and e-mailed Mr. Berg’s office again and they put me on a no call list. I have only gotten 2 more calls since then. There just isn’t anything that compelling in the Star anymore. Sad…
Save your money and buy some Cocaine. Better for your health than risking a heart attack for sure reading the Star.
I’m at a loss to understand why people subscribe to the paper today. Is it force of habit? It’s all out there, for free, on the internet. I know my approach doesn’t do anything to help the local paper stay financially viable, but they let that horse out of the barn twenty years ago.
More exciting and more worthy of my money are sites like The Athletic that charge a nominal fee for high-quality daily writing. As sad as the times are for local dailies, the opportunities for us as readers to access the best in journalism have never been better.
Very true, Paul…
I can try and answer your question as to why. In my case because in terms of actual local news beyond house fires and shooting, what other options do people truly have?
In my case I’m trapped out here in the Hinterland (for now, soon as my house in Lawrence sells I’m coming back with a vengeance, so stay tuned).
So are far as the Star has fallen, they’re still head and shoulders over any other source of local news.
The sad thing is, nobody there seems capable of figuring a path forward…one that doesn’t include rehashing national, dayp-old news stories.
Why the rehash?
Because it makes for cheap filler and if they cut it out, all their over-the-hill readership (that doesn’t go onlone much if any) would cancel because the Star is still probably their main source of national news.
How about this:
HEY STOMPER, YPOU ARE THE PERFECT ONE TO ANSWER PAUL’S QUESTION. MAKE IT A LONG ONE AND I’LL POST IT AS A STORY
Thanks for the invite but why should I waste time on a long response and take the abuse from your right wing fanatics. Paul answered it pretty simply with his second sentence. I begin every morning with a pot of coffee, a bowl of blueberries, a banana, and the Star. I read EVERYTHING but the want ads/ads. News, editorials, obits , cartoons, play all the games, sports. I even check to see who got a hole in one. They quenched my thirst on David Jungerman and other local stories as well. As you all know, I’m a democrat so the editorial slant of the paper is right up my alley. If you don’t like it you can get your news from Fox and The American Thinker. To quote my man Popeye, “I Yam What I Yam and Dats What I Yam” I’m comfortable in my skin, Admin. I’ll save my literary efforts preaching my view of politics. I try to read and listen to everything I can access to get the broadest view possible but the Star will remain in my driveway every morning. Subscribed since 1974 when I got about 100 pages each in both the Times and the Star without a break and love it. Yep, it’s shrunk and costs me more but, so what.
Well said, Stomps…
No apologies needed.
I would suggest however that you read my story about Star subscription prices and act accordingly in the event you are choking out two or four hundred (or more) a year for your driveway ritual.
Grazie
excellenty stomps (and remember who used that term first)!!!!!!!!!
I don’t read the star….look at headlines when buying gas at quick trip.
Nothing new to read ther e but headlines docatch my attention.
Hernia want to see it disappear…but big cities need a city paper.
I don’t subscribe…not on digital..but this town needs someone to keep
the crooks and liars in line if not we go down.
Greatcomment stomp…this city is going south.
Heard hunt is building 2500 ice skating/entertainment center in south
joco….kc needs street car to deliver customers to westport and plaza…
if not…we’ll see the ramifications of poor government taken over
by private biz interests.
Plus…as boom boom predicted….the corruption and graft of governement
needs to be curtailed.Trump wont finish his term…and chuckles will be the clown as he is.
If we don’t change directions…the great nation we have lived in will be
gone in 10-15 years…and it will be american oligarchs/not russian!
But most of guys like glaze/hearne/chuckles etc. will be pushing roses
before that happens.
Happy fathers day everyone!
I’m not rooting for the Star to go down, Boom…
The opposite is the case; I’m rooting for them to make it (and backing it with my subscription dollars). I am rooting for regime change, you might say. Because the current leadership crew has bought a one way ticket to the bottom of the sea and they clearly are rudderless, other than to just keep cutting bodies and cashing their paychecks
“Liberal” used to mean tolerant, open-mindedness, rigorous application of logic and reasoning, awareness of one’s own biases, respect for laws of the land, and insistence on equality under the law. Above all liberalism was about freedom of thought and expression, and being free to make one’s own decisions for which one was fully responsible. Now, we are “Right Wing Fanatics” if we don’t, as 90% of the media insist, listen to and adhere to the Progressive Narrative.
Almost all of the leftist Progressive totalitarians’ gains have been due to their ability to distort the language. The Kansas City Star is part and parcel of that effort. They have convinced people that an aggressor whose aggression is checked is a victim of the society or power that checked their aggression. They have convinced people that sex and gender mean the same thing, and that both can mean whatever you want them to. They have convinced people that a system that does not give preferential treatment based on race is institutionally racist. They have convinced people that individualism is selfish, and that collectivism and the genuflecting before Dear Leader that it inevitably leads to is somehow virtuous.
Our current crop of Leftists/Progressives/Collectivists cherish conformity over than freedom, and lock-step-loyalty to their chosen Collectivist narratives and talking points instead of a free and bi-directional flow of ideas. Even when those narratives and talking points are either entirely fact free (e.g. “Hands up, don’t shoot!”), or based upon contrived logical fallacies.
Progressives demand slavish fealty to their ideology–period. To them, “diversity” is nothing more than a white Leftist/Collectivist, a black Leftist/Collectivist, a Latino Leftists/Collectivist, and an Asian Leftist/Collectivist sitting around the coffee shop–or the faculty lounge–grousing about Right Wing Fanatic Republicans, Trump, and those deplorable Trump supporters are. There is no true diversity of thought. You know, like the Kansas City Star demagogue Democrat Thought Leaders who pass for ‘Objective’ journalists in the city’s “Paper of Record”.
There is no freedom of thought and expression; and if you dare differ from the Group Think du jour, then you are characterized as sexist, racist, mean-spirited, intolerant, or some other pejorative in an effort to get you back in line. Funny how they claim to be “tolerant” when they are some of the least tolerant individuals to be found.
Color me a “Right Wing Fanatic” “Deplorable”.
Thanks Chuck; How about we get past your propensity to rant about your perception of all those to the left of the aisle being intolerant socialists and try to exchange some civil comments. Your wild and inaccurate generalizations are unfair. I can match your insults in describing the hypocrisy and idiocy of republican/conservative/religious right words and actions but what does that accomplish.
I can’t speak specifically for all those on the left anymore than you can for those who lean to the right but I can put down some basic markers that I think we can at least start with. I would say that Republicans/Conservatives basically adhere to the tenets of smaller government and lower taxes. They generally favor little if any regulation over the private sector and beyond funding the military and probably maintaining our infrastructure, the role of the government should be very limited and specific. The private sector should determine most of the remaining outcomes. I would also add that they tend to be strict constructionists when viewing the Constitution. On the other side I would say that Democrats/Liberals generally believe that the government should play a larger and more active role, especially in specific areas of our economy and day to day life. In terms of regulation and activity, the government has an obligation to the citizens as a whole to insure basic fairness in some areas of need like healthcare, free and fair markets, safe products, safe workplace, clean air and water, education, equal treatment for all citizens among the more important ones. This obviously requires government expenditures/higher taxes. Generally they tend to see the Constitution as a living document, needing to adapt to changing times and circumstances. Beyond that, pretty much everything else is gray and in between. There is a lot of common ground between those two views. We share a whole lot more than we disagree on when it comes down to it. Would you agree with those general markers? The differences and focus should be on policies and not personalities.
Chuck, I’d love to debate specific issues with you as opposed to trading insults. How about healthcare? How about interpretation of the Constitution? The 2nd Amendment/gun control? Pick one of your own.
???
“Thanks Chuck; How about we get past your propensity to rant about your perception of all those to the left of the aisle being intolerant socialists and try to exchange some civil comments.”
Says the guy who calls me a “Right Wing Fanatic”?
Sure…
So your answer is No ?
hearnia…why do you ce nsor my comments…I’ve been right more than anyone
on kcc…..it”s just amatter of time til trump and cohorts end up out of office.
And who told you so?e
stop holding up my comments hearne. Boom Boom has the inside wrap.
And now that sports betting is legal look for the mob to take over the big bucks!
I told you here first.
Check godaddy.com!
I’m not holding you out. You’ve had plenty of shots at Trump and others.
Might keep you a tad more civil at times
Just like he was right about Hilary winning,