- Jun 6, 2007
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Back on May 23rd, 2016 "The Philadelphia Inquirer" the main newspaper for the Philadelphia region raised its newsstand price from $1.00 to $1.50 a fifty percent increase! This move really harmed this large community, Philadelphia being America's sixth largest city, albeit the harm was insidious and its full impact won't be felt until this sharp price increase is passed on to the home delivery receipients of the paper which of course is coming soon because this move obviously will significantly reduce the newsstand circulation and considering newspapers have a big payroll necessitating a yearly need for a significant increase in revenue and the easiest well left for the Inquirer management to tap is raising home delivery prices that will be done which will of course again reduce circulation this time from home delivery readers. This 50 cent increase will deter many ordinary members of the community from buying the newspaper for it means they will have to spend $7.50 a week and $30.00 a month just to buy the daily newspaper it will be viewed by these people as just too costly. This will hurt the greater Philadelphia region because the less people that read a high quality newspaper like the Inquirer the less informed these people will be especially about matters related to their citizenship, things like government corruption, things like government spending, the education system, the full list of subjects would be an enormous list. This matters because the less knowledgeable our citizens are the less likely they are to stop bad developments and outcomes in these areas from occurring and fix them when they do occur. People don't talk about, take action on and vote about subjects they are not aware of or aware of the scope of and reading a quality newspaper gives them that education that brings about them making such a difference. To say these people will get this information from other sources like from watching news programs on TV or their cell phones is misguided and false newspaper articles allow for a greater specificity and a more comprehensive informing than these other sources which are very time limited in their overview of subjects. Or to say that most of these print newspaper readers that are turned away by this price increase will just read the newspaper off the Inquirers website with no detrimental impact is just plain wrong. For the ordinary person reading a newspaper in print form is done more quickly than reading it off the website and considering most people have a time crunched life basic logic means driving these readers away from being print readers will significantly negatively impact how much of the newspaper they read and for some days whether they read it at all! The Inquirers management could be excused here if they raised the newsstand price at the inflation rate or giving them added leeway close to the inflation rate but they blew past these standards with their fifty percent increase. Prior to this year the newsstand price was last raised in 2011 so even allowing management an easy standard to follow like a 4.5% increase per year would have only resulted in an increase of the newsstand price to $1.25 a reasonable price.
What it is turning out to be across America considering that high quality newspapers are pricing their print papers out of the reach of ordinary low and middle income Americans is that our country is deepening the divide in what it means to be a non-wealthy American versus a wealthy or affluent American. If you're a wealthy American America helps you become educated about the economy, politics and every subject these high quality newspapers touch on and if you're not a wealthy American America doesn't really care about educating you on these subject matters it is better off you stay uneducated and in your economic class so as to not put in jeopardy those in the higher economic class. The facts speak for themselves: The Boston Globe costs $1.50, The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post cost $2.00 and The New York Times costs $2.50.
Part of the problem is that the Board of Directors of these newspapers don't care enough about keeping the price of their print papers low enough so the working person can afford it. The members of these Boards don't appreciate their civic role in making their newspapers affordable to all Americans that this is vital for our Democracy to be effective as it should be and this is vital for America to be America a country where all her citizens prosper and do well together. A further part of the problem is that these newspapers boards are full of wealthy, upper class and elite types that are primarily concerned about their demographic group they don't care enough about the members of their community that fall into the other lesser demographic groups. Take for instance the Philadelphia Inquirer, this paper is part of a media organization called Philadelphia Media Network which has its own Board of Directors, and the owner of this organization was Gerry Lenfest, a very nice old guy, who donated the paper to a non-profit created of this donation, called The Institute for Journalism in New Media which was supposed to have its own Board of Directors (called the Board of Managers); both Boards of course have the charge of reigning in the bean-counter, civic-minded black hole Publisher Terrence Egger from unduly raising the price of its papers making it unaffordable to many members of the greater Philadelphia community. The list of the Board members of these two boards would make for some impressive photographs on the major social events pages in the Inquirer if they were depicted there for they have impressive resumes. Philadelphia Media Networks has three board members: Joshua Kopelman a partner in First Round Capital ( a venture capitalist firm), Christopher Harned a top executive at Robert W. Baird & Co. (a wealth management company) and Gerry Lenfest. The Institute of Journalism For New Media board members I am not even going to list because I don't even think the board is in effect as of today, researching the announced board members proves difficult to find any current connection with the Institute from the standpoint of a Board Manager role maybe that is the problem that there is no real independent Board of Director oversight for "The Philadelphia Inquirer".
If things keep going in the direction they are going in this industry top level newspapers will price their print editions so they go out of existence there won't be enough higher income Americans to pay the purchase price. This will be tragic for all Americans because the country will have lost an invaluable education source for the American people and America will be less strong as a country as a result. It is heart breaking to see this sequence of events occur in the country because it doesn't have to be if management only cared enough about this issue they could succeed. If they only put forth more effort to hold down expenses, expand circulation (in part, keep selling that print holds more value than the website edition) and lead their staff's to save this invaluable part of the industry they could make this journalism source permanently alive and well!
What it is turning out to be across America considering that high quality newspapers are pricing their print papers out of the reach of ordinary low and middle income Americans is that our country is deepening the divide in what it means to be a non-wealthy American versus a wealthy or affluent American. If you're a wealthy American America helps you become educated about the economy, politics and every subject these high quality newspapers touch on and if you're not a wealthy American America doesn't really care about educating you on these subject matters it is better off you stay uneducated and in your economic class so as to not put in jeopardy those in the higher economic class. The facts speak for themselves: The Boston Globe costs $1.50, The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post cost $2.00 and The New York Times costs $2.50.
Part of the problem is that the Board of Directors of these newspapers don't care enough about keeping the price of their print papers low enough so the working person can afford it. The members of these Boards don't appreciate their civic role in making their newspapers affordable to all Americans that this is vital for our Democracy to be effective as it should be and this is vital for America to be America a country where all her citizens prosper and do well together. A further part of the problem is that these newspapers boards are full of wealthy, upper class and elite types that are primarily concerned about their demographic group they don't care enough about the members of their community that fall into the other lesser demographic groups. Take for instance the Philadelphia Inquirer, this paper is part of a media organization called Philadelphia Media Network which has its own Board of Directors, and the owner of this organization was Gerry Lenfest, a very nice old guy, who donated the paper to a non-profit created of this donation, called The Institute for Journalism in New Media which was supposed to have its own Board of Directors (called the Board of Managers); both Boards of course have the charge of reigning in the bean-counter, civic-minded black hole Publisher Terrence Egger from unduly raising the price of its papers making it unaffordable to many members of the greater Philadelphia community. The list of the Board members of these two boards would make for some impressive photographs on the major social events pages in the Inquirer if they were depicted there for they have impressive resumes. Philadelphia Media Networks has three board members: Joshua Kopelman a partner in First Round Capital ( a venture capitalist firm), Christopher Harned a top executive at Robert W. Baird & Co. (a wealth management company) and Gerry Lenfest. The Institute of Journalism For New Media board members I am not even going to list because I don't even think the board is in effect as of today, researching the announced board members proves difficult to find any current connection with the Institute from the standpoint of a Board Manager role maybe that is the problem that there is no real independent Board of Director oversight for "The Philadelphia Inquirer".
If things keep going in the direction they are going in this industry top level newspapers will price their print editions so they go out of existence there won't be enough higher income Americans to pay the purchase price. This will be tragic for all Americans because the country will have lost an invaluable education source for the American people and America will be less strong as a country as a result. It is heart breaking to see this sequence of events occur in the country because it doesn't have to be if management only cared enough about this issue they could succeed. If they only put forth more effort to hold down expenses, expand circulation (in part, keep selling that print holds more value than the website edition) and lead their staff's to save this invaluable part of the industry they could make this journalism source permanently alive and well!
