I'm glad someone else had the guts to post about the Times-Dispatch's new custom section, which will only set curious news consumers back a buck a week:
Times-Dispatch wants me
to pay an extra $1 week on my subscription to get a special section
they've invented called Insight: An In-Depth Look at Our World. That's
$52 a year. I can get a high-class weekly magazine subscription for
that amount. If you don't ordinarily get the Saturday paper, it's $2
extra per week ($104 a year!!), and if you want it mailed, it's $3 a
week ($156 a year!!!! You can get two or three really great magazines
for that amount, and they're easier to carry on the bus or read in the
bathroom.)
As Mariane Matera notes, the special section is recycled content from syndication services and is designed with an emphasis on being dull and uninviting.
What the section doesn't do is help the struggling daily fight back against two of its biggest adversaries -- the acceleration of the 24/7 news cycle, and the increased use of the Internet as a source of local and hyperlocal information.
