The Register has a nice article today on DM Metro growth. It is one of theirs online that you have to be a subscriber to view, but some here might purchase today's physical copy locally.
This link is to that article, but which likely won't let you open anything if you aren't a subscriber (but will instead give you the 6 months for a dollar option -- as it as one of their "
Subscriber Only" articles, that is, it is
not included in your allotment of monthly freebies if you don't already subscribe):
"How Des Moines became Midwest's fastest-growing major metro"
www.desmoinesregister.com
This link is to their website, where that article is currently on the front page:
The Des Moines Register is the number one source for Des Moines and Iowa breaking, politics, business, agriculture, Iowa sports and entertainment news.
www.desmoinesregister.com
I have been a fierce critic of the Register. I am not that interested, therefore, in personal attacks and that critique more generally. But I am going to offer a few personal observations below.
I know, TLDR. Just my 2 cents.
Recently, I started reading online newspapers using the
PDF download option, and
I personally find that superior to just the website. Viewing just the website, to me, seems comparable to in the pre-internet era just watching the evening news. In those days, you weren't considered well informed if you didn't read a daily newspaper. I find it highly efficient to read the physical copy of a newspaper. You can see a glance what is important, flip through the pages, and get right to it.
Viewing a website, how many things are you going to click to see if something is worth reading -- or -- if you might
discover something you
might want to read on a different page? Do you click every link?
Even if I don't subscribe, I view just scanning a newspaper's website as comparable to, in the past, just viewing the evening news. You might not be interested in more than what you see there, and even if you are, you might have access to more detail about that same news item elsewhere.
I haven't used the full download PDF option almost at all in the past. Having used it quite a bit recently, it is easy to see how editors and professional journalists probably have been for quite awhile.
News sites I currently subscribe to include the Des Moines Register, the Omaha World-Herald, and the Council Bluffs Nonpareil. Their current online-only prices -- today (this could change) -- are one dollar for each one
for the next six months. Three dollars total. Pretty cheap.
If anyone does subscribe today, under any deal like this, I would suggest cancelling one month before your access expires, to avoid the regular charge -- if that is the plan -- rather than wait, as you might otherwise be surprised by fine print somewhere, of the timing of when this will occur.
The PDF download, while identical to a home-delivered paper -- subject to some differences perhaps with respect to things like version, or which part of the state you might live, metro area or not, possibly for example -- is still not the same as reading the physical version. It is not like flipping pages.
But again, I personally find it better than just the website. What I do, or try to do, is download all three newspapers listed above at the same time, first thing in the morning, and scan each one. I don't always do so, which is comparable to not reading a physical version if I didn't have enough time that day.
It takes awhile to learn all of the functionality and how to do best do this, so there is a learning curve. But now that I have, first thing in the morning, I scan pretty much all the news they also have on their website (even if a day late, so what) -- knowing some things I am not that interested in, like Ankeny, or Cornhusker football, or even the Cyclones, as I get more news on that elsewhere. Furthermore, I see articles I was very interested in but would not have seen on their website, because it was too buried for me to find, or because it was only included in the PDF (home delivery) version.
I have been doing this for awhile, so these articles don't stick out as much now that I am accustomed to it. But this was definitely the norm at first. I might see an article or two in each, every day, I was very interested in, but -- even as a subscriber -- would never have seen on their website.
More ordinary things that I might be interested in at a glance, that I was used to seeing in newspapers in the past, are things like current MLB standings and results.
Scanning newspapers like this is probably comparable to how some people scan their Twitter or other news feeds. Some of the news is in all three, so there is no need to read each.
And by having everything in front of me -- as opposed just just a snippet online -- it is easy to read just a part, and read some and then decide that's enough, and to move on to something else. So while it is not as efficient as the physical copy, I find it better and more efficient -- for me -- than just the website.
Also, if I downloaded it to my hard drive, I can always come back to it later.
By doing things this way -- one and done -- I don't find much need to be continually surveying online versions. I do some but not as much. I find this way, for me, to be more efficient and productive.
I know, TLDR. Just my 2 cents.