Baltimore Sun to Charge for Website Access

[deeshopper]

You can view 15 pages per month for free. Not per day...PER MONTH!

 

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-sun-letter-20110925,0,1591307.story

[vmax]

Oh well...they get their news from the Ravens website anyway...just rewrite it a little.

With Hensley being gone it only leaves Preston who was worth reading. I like Smuck, but they told him they hate him and have him covering the Orioles.

 

I'm not paying $100 a year.

Won't do it.

[dc.]

So they pull their best O's writer, and one of the best baseball writers in the country, and put him on the Ravens (who only have 7 writers already)... Jeff Zrebiec

 

They sink Schmuck as Max said above, who's just about the only interesting sports columnist they have left...

 

They move their premier movie and entertainment writer off the movie beat ... (Sragow)

 

And now they want me to pay?

 

I knew this day would come (paying for access), but to have it come AFTER a lot of the crap that they have pulled in coverage? Blah.

[RavenMad]

Meh, good luck to them. I will get all my Ravens news from here and the Ravens website from that point on.

[vmax]

Look on the bright side...we're saving the trees.

[papasmurfbell]

And the Sun walks to the end a little farther.

[OutsideRzAcE]

I enjoy Kevin Van Valkeburg's "5 Things We Learned" articles after a Ravens game. Besides that, like max said you get better news from the ravens website or from Aaron Wilson on the Carrol county times website. If the sun knew this was coming they should have stepped their Raven's coverage game up. Their blogs have been really watered down lately. All Matt Vensel does is report about what other media personalities or football players are saying on twitter.

[dc.]

What's funny to me is that Ravens coverage is about ALL The Sun is doing well these days. It's not perfect, but it's decent.

 

Their O's coverage was good too, but there wasn't always a lot of it - and now that Zrebiec is in Ravens land, it won't be noticeable (but it is just about the only source for it). (Yes, I know about OriolesHangout).

 

Their local government, crime and education reports were fine, I suppose. I like being in the loop on local matters... but I can hear it all through the grapevine and national news really matters more to me in many ways.

 

The only other thing half decent were their occasional big investigative reports - those on Dixon, the cheating in the public school systems, the ground rent expose. Good stuff. Too rare to be considered regular.

[deeshopper]

I've made it a point not to go to the site at all. They can keep their 15 free page views.

[RavensDomination]

Their forums are going pay too. Screw that.

 

I like KVV's column too, it's pretty much the only one I read with regularity, and 15 clicks per month should be enough to read that.

[deeshopper]

It'll depend on how you navigate through the site. I typically go to the home page and see what I want to read. That's one page there. When I click through to an article, that's another view. Go back to the homepage to see what else, another view. 15 pages can add up quick. It's ridiculous. Using a forum there will be even worse. I typically read stories related to Baltimore City just out of curiosity. I don't live in the city, but that is where most of the content is targeted. I can get my local news other places. I get the Columbia Flyer for free so I can just read that. So, in the end, The Sun loses by readership on the website. I'd imagine their unique visitors per month will go down as a result, but that is what Web advertisers pay for: unique visitors. Good luck to them. They've been unoriginal for years.

[vmax]

I'm having fun tooling around the new site today. Lot of features that I need to learn how to use.

I don't Twitter or facebook...do all my tapping here..but maybe I should try that.

[deeshopper]

I've setup two RSS feeds that will post into the Baltimore Ravens forum. The feeds are general Ravens articles and posts from the Ravens Insider blog. This way, you can decide which stories you want to actually waste your 15 page views on. If you all would like me to setup other feeds, let me know. ExtremeRavens will post them automatically as they are published.