Sunday, February 7, 2010

MJS Must Really Be Hurting

Gretchen Schuldt may be very well correct when she points out that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is going down the toilet.

Last year, I had a difficult time justifying renewing my subscription to the paper. Even though the paper was already a diminishing product, there was a lot of debate in the Cheddarsphere about supporting the media. Despite its lowered quality and its high level of right wing bias, I decided that there was sufficient cause, like the reports on child welfare by Crocker Stephenson, to renew it for another year.

As the year progressed, the quality of the paper dropped even more. They laid off some good quality people like Tim Cuprisin and Sonya Jongsma Knauss. Inexplicably, they laid off these good people but kept the inept Steven Schultze and the disingenuous Patrick McIlheran.

They started crunching sections together several days of the week. On Mondays, for example, they crunch the local and national news into one section, lowering the coverage of each. They also dropped their own editorial page and the syndicated columns on Mondays, only running a handful of Letters to the Editor.

They also started to mess around with things like the TV Cue section, one of the few useful sections of the paper. First scaling it back, then dropping it unless you called and ordered it special. Now they want to charge people to have it included in the paper.

Now, I am a creature of habit, and admit that I enjoyed having the paper sprawled out in front of me as I ate my breakfast and had my morning cup of coffee. The crossword and other word puzzles were my way of getting ready for the day, getting my sleepy brain up and running.

So it was sad when I realized that I was going to have to let my subscription lapse. With my wife underemployed and me facing a very real of layoff in a month or two, there was no way I could justify the expense this time. I set up things as much as I could so that I didn't miss much (I hoped).

My decision was only strengthened when MJS finally got around to sending me my renewal notice. They jacked the rate up another 10% and wanted my money four days later. I felt that was being very disingenuous to give such short notice. Then I noticed on the back that I had to call and cancel the subscription or they would automatically renew it.

So early last week, I called them up to cancel. The customer service representative was very polite and professional when I told her that I wanted to cancel. She asked why I wanted to cancel, and I told her simply that I could not afford it, and to be frankly honest, it wasn't worth the money that they wanted for it.

To my surprise, the representative said that MJS didn't want to lose a long-time subscriber such as myself (I've been getting the paper for ten years). She immediately offered me their promotional rate of $150 for the full year, Monday through Friday, including the TV Cue.

That was a full 36% cut from what they wanted. I succumbed to the urge of keeping my habit going at least one more year, and agreed to the renewal.

My father had a similar experience. He signed up for the Sunday only delivery at a promotional rate of 99 cents per week. When they wanted him to renew, the jacked it up to $86, a 60% increase. He called to cancel and they immediately offered him the promotional rate again.

My dad, who used to work for MJS a long, long time ago, said that they are really hurting, since their circulation is less than half of what it was when he worked there all those years ago, and it is the circulation numbers that drives what they can charge for advertisements. For them to be so quick to offer such cuts in their costs would indicate that their numbers aren't as good as they keep touting every other Sunday.

I felt a little better about the deal when I learned a friend was paying $125 for six months of the paper. For $25 more, I got twice as much paper as my friend.

Although I still can't help but wonder if I am still getting ripped off.

11 comments:

  1. I find it strange that you're so hard on Schultze when the guy is a left-winger who continually follows Walker around waiting for breadcrumbs of bad news.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you read my work, you would realize that he is more pro-Walker than he is against. All he does is regurgitate Walker's press releases, much like you do.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i finally gave up on the MJS when i realized they run 1 horse columns. Kane and Causey are the worst offenders. If i can see the boring rehashed topic redundancy. . . And i am not in the newspaper biz. . . U get the point. Those 2 are a living, breathing soap opera. You can turn them off and walk away for weeks and miss nothing. I will read the paper again when i see a peer with her own column telling the city ad nauseum what its like to live with a vicious thief called mental illness.

    ReplyDelete
  4. $125 for 6 months? You are getting ripped off. I paid $104 for an entire year for the LVRJ (conservative) and The Las Vegas Sun (liberal). Of course, that was a special, but hey, I'll take it.
    Sorry to hear about your wife and your possibility of being unemployed in the near future (I really hope you meant it as serious and not a cut on Walker-that's not a thing to kid about)
    I sincerely hope things work out.

    ReplyDelete
  5. My wife has been underemployed for six months now, only getting part time gigs.

    And I am not kidding about being laid off. It all depends on the number of lay offs Walker wants to do versus the number of retirees vs which programs Walker decides will hurt him the least when he cuts them out.

    ReplyDelete
  6. high level of right wing bias

    LMFAO!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hey, Chris. Thanks for your kind words (to me, that is). Clarification: I was not actually laid off; just jumped to another job in the company (at MilwaukeeMoms.com) after I was told my position on the Editorial Board would be disappearing. I know it's a technicality, but it wasn't a layoff.

    ReplyDelete
  8. if it werent for his good nazi foot soldier, JOHN CHIANELLI, Walker would fare the absolute best by gutting mental health care services. We have no voice and no surrogate voice. All we can hope for is time to pass, and for Walker to stab JC in the back. Followed by the citizenry doing likewise to Walker. No honor among thieves.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sonja,

    I don't know if you would qualify the move as a lateral move or a demotion, and frankly, that is between you and MJS.

    I am glad that you landed in a position you seem to enjoy and are having success yet, but your absence still diminishes the paper that much more.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The Urinal Sentinel isn't fit to line my bird cage. The editorial board lacks any credibility and ignores all of the incompetent goofs of Walker & Co. which is why the County is in a 30 million deficit this year. If they had real investigative reporting they would uncover the debacle that is the Ceridian payroll human resources system which was broken coming out of the box brand new and has caused taxpayers 15-20 million plus in implementation costs and software rewrites. The real profound aspect of this huge expenditure of taxpayer $ is that the system still doesn't work right and that payroll must be done manually by hand making it up to three times more labor intensive as the former Genesis system. One reason you don't hear too much about this is that it was introduced by the Walker Administration and passed by the equally inept County Board. If you don't believe it call up Supervisor Luigi Schmitt who was chairman of the personnel committee when they passed this boondoggle unto the taxpayers. Ask him for a truthful accounting and audit of the Ceridian system since 2006. Why your at it ask Chairman Holloway about it as well, he received petitions with over 500 names demanding an audit and cost analysis of this incredibly incompetent decision by the County. His response to the petitions was a letter of lip service with no action taken. Apparently Chairman Holloway doesn't like the way he looks with egg all over his face!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I think the JS dumped Sonja into a more invisible job because management was worried about that younger, intelligent voice on the editorial page. You never know what kind of dangerous, urban new readers she might draw.

    ReplyDelete