PhotoDude.com

Thu. Sep 09, 2004

Atlanta Newspaper, Online Sports Tease

I’m once again headed out of town for a couple of days, so I’ll leave you with this letter I sent to our local newspaper, The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

As someone in the advertising industry, I understand your need to profit from your online content. I was willing to register to continue viewing that content. I wasn’t happy when you moved your sports columnists behind a paid firewall, but I at least understood. And as a blogger, I really wanted to see what your sports guys were doing in that medium. But, again, I understood … premium content equals premium price.

Now it appears you have moved the majority of your coverage of the Falcons behind that paid firewall. We get a summary article of the game, but if you want the “details,” the notes about injuries, and quotes from players (you know, the “news” about the event?), you have to pay up. That was a shove too far. I was willing to register, understood the loss of columnists, that I wouldn’t be getting the “extras” like blog content, and was willing to stick with it.

But you’ve gone too far. You’re now removing news content, not “extras.”

Faced with 60%-75% of your Falcons coverage disappearing behind that paid firewall, I will now simply go away. I’ll get my sports news from ESPN, or CNN/SI, or even the Falcon’s Roost. And by going away I won’t be missing much, as in the past 6 days, you’ve published three publicly accessible articles on the Falcons. You used to have one to three per day.

Hope you make enough from those who pay extra to access that content to make up for those of us who are gone from your now useless online Sports Section. For good.