Vacaville Reporter to Charge for Its Online Content

The Vacaville Reporter announced today that it will begin charging for its online content.

The pay wall will go up on Monday and will allow readers to access some free online content on a monthly basis. It will impose a limit on the amount of free content and once the limit is reached, the pay wall will ask readers to subscribe to the site for full access according to a story in today's Reporter. 

Jim Gleim, publisher of the Reporter, was quoted in the paper's story saying that the pay wall will allow his newspaper to continue delivering the "quality writing and reporting that our readers expect from us." 

<<See the full story, free for now, on the pages of the Reporter>>

Visitors of the paper's web site, available at www.thereporter.com, will still have access to the paper's home page, obits and announcements, the paper said, adding that readers will have access to an additional five free pages of news content a month before being asked to subscribe. 

Current print customers will need to pay an additional $1.99 per month for full online access to the site, the Reporter's story said.

Current print subscribers may extend their subscription to include full digital access for an additional $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year.

Those wanting digital-only access only will be asked to pay $5.99 per month or $59.99 per year.

Readers of the paper expressed their outrage, using their Facebook accounts, at the paper's decision to begin charging for online content.

Here is what some of them said:

Curt Fargo: The news is free too many places so why would I pay for it here? Ever since Richard Rico sold the paper it has gone down hill and the news it does publish is staler and staler. Not that I would want to work in their industry as it is dying, I think by taking this action, they are just accelerating their death.

This may bring in a couple of dollars but it will push even more people away which in turn will make the advertising they sell that you see on here worth even that much less. I don't expect them to tell me how to run my business and I can't tell them how to run theirs but I see this as a very bad move for all.

Nadeen Speets:good-bye...certainly not PAYING for a paper.

Matt Schumacher: This is definitely going to hurt the advertisers here. Even though the classifieds will be free, there is always Craigslist. Although I agree with Fargo that this is the Paper's business, and their choice, I also agree that they are accelerating the demise of the local paper.

But not all the comments are against the paper's decision

Pat Snelling: How many people actually buy the physical paper -- Yet depend on their reporting for their community? Remember what happened in Bell, CA when there was NOT a local media..

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