Category Archives: Top navigation

Newsroom culture of excellence, foundational document No. 10: Understanding digits in the digital world

This graphs shows growth of our Facebook audience from four counties – York, Adams, Franklin and Lebanon – and beyond. Many journalists will tell you that math wasn’t their best subject. In fact, some will say they got into journalism … Continue reading

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Grump: Thanks for listening about paying for access to online stories, photos

‘Grump’ is part of his email address, but he’s anything but. He’s been active in the community forever and a hands-on enthusiast of York County history. So I winced a bit in reading his email:

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Conversations about paywalls – and Uncle Billy

Email from long-time subscriber:  “Why do I have to pay to read YDR online when I am on vacation?” My response (in part):  “The short answer is that there is a cost for us to provide the stories and photos … Continue reading

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York reader’s paywall perspective sparks subscription debate

A terrific dialogue has ensued in a recent post I made here at the YDR Insider. It’s exactly the type of conversation we were looking for when we launched this blog site. I shared an email exchange I had with … Continue reading

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Hanover editor assesses Eveningsun.com paywall

A couple of posts about the paywall – the online subscriptions – charged for ydr.com and associated sites have generated long threads of comments. That good. We welcome the dialogue. (Check out the comments on: A reader offers ydr.com advice … Continue reading

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A reader offers ydr.com advice on the paywall

Sometimes people just complain. But once in a while, people who have a complaint offer real, tangible options to consider. This happened recently when I received an email titled “You’ve lost a reader.” The woman who wrote this said it … Continue reading

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Two pieces of YDR/YSN’s paywall experiment

Two newsroom discussions last week reveal various pieces about the controversial question: Should news organizations charge readers for Web access to stories and photos, sometimes called online subscriptions, implemented through construction of a paywall? In an update meeting on how … Continue reading

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PO Facebook exchange brings out intriguing paywall questions

The Chambersburg, Pa., Public Opinion’s Facebook site is a popular place that effectively brings together the Franklin County community. The site hosted a recent conversation on paywalls, or online subscriptions. Becky Bennett, editor of our sister news organization in Chambersburg, … Continue reading

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Our goal for readers of ydr.com: ‘A navigation experience worth paying for’

The design or look of ydr.com and our news organization’s other websites display the work of our visual department more prominently than previous designs. (We call it a visual department because it produces photos, graphics, videos, livestream feeds, among other … Continue reading

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Should we offer free online subscriptions?

Soon after we started charging for access to our website, the requests for free subscriptions started right in. This was not something we had anticipated and we needed to quickly pull together a logical and consistent response. The requests came … Continue reading

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