Everything's negotiable

I am a dying breed, one of those people who still subscribes to a daily newspaper, which is delivered to my house each day.

It is part of my heritage. My parents faithfully read the newspapers each day, one state and one local, and if either was not delivered on time, my dad was on the phone with the circulation desk. They worked the Jumble each day and my mother worked the crossword and cryptoquote. They read the comics.

It's weird, but I feel a strange connection with them through the daily newspaper, even though I live in a different town than the one in which I grew up, and take a different paper. But I feel like I'm carrying on an important practice or tradition. I think it also has something to do with studying journalism in college and learning the newspaper business before computers were everywhere.

As everyone knows, the digital age has drastically changed print media and today's print newspaper is drastically different from the ones of a generation ago. That's because news is constantly available online and it's no longer necessary to read news in print.

This is not the first time newspapers have had to adapt to changing times. When radio, and then TV, became prevalent, it was predicted newspapers would become obsolete.

But as you know, newspapers survived and co-existed with the broadcast mediums and to an extent, they complemented d each other. People still wanted the newspaper for the in-depth news and even the aforementioned puzzles and comics.

The computer age has presented a much greater challenge and the only way newspapers are surviving is to have an online presence. Smaller papers across the country have either gone out of business or sold out to the big media companies that have the resources to stay current. Fewer and fewer people have a newspaper delivered their home as I do. And once my generation dies out, I really doubt there will still be daily print papers anymore.

For me, as long as there is a newspaper in print available, I intend to subscribe. Well, that is, if they don't go up in price so much that I can no longer justify the expenditure. Because really, I can get my news online too. My continuing to subscribe has as much to with principle and sentiment as anything else.

That brings me to a recent letter I received which marked the closest I have ever come to becoming a non-newspaper subscriber.

Our local paper is owned by Gannett, the huge media company that owns USA Today and papers across the country. I really don't care for the way they handle news and the way they mass- produce it, but I get it. They are a business and they have to achieve financial goals.

They now own the three largest papers in Tennessee -- The Commercial Appeal in Memphis (which until a couple of years ago was a Scripps Howard publication), The Knoxville News Sentinel and The Tennessean here in Nashville.

By acquiring these three papers, they achieved a certain amount of synergies and efficiencies and, again, I get it. But it has contributed to even more "canned news" which makes these papers have more and more uniform characteristics of USA Today.

I only have to go back to Little Rock, where I used to live, and read a copy of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to realize the stark difference between a corporately owned paper and a locally owned one. I'll even occasionally go online and read the El Dorado (Arkansas) New Times, my local paper from my growing-up years. There's no comparison.

But now the Gannett publication is the only daily local print newspaper available to me, and I have remained a faithful subscriber.

Back to that letter I received. The writer of same thanked me for being a subscriber, and went on to tell me about an increase in the cost. (They needed my help, he told me). My daily subscription, with full access to print and digital, would go from 53 to 77 dollars  per month. That is bad enough, but I might add that only last August, the cost went up to 53 dollars from 36 dollars.

So over the course of less than a year, the subscription cost more than doubled. I decided I had helped them enough.

And I told Wife that was it. I could no longer justify paying that much for something that has only gotten smaller (in volume and content). I was very sad about this, but enough is enough.

Wife assured me she would be willing for us to continue, knowing how important it is to me. But I told her no, it was time to end it.

So I made the call. A nice guy named Richard answered and I told him, due to the sharp increase in price, I would have to cancel my subscription. I told him a little bit of my story and I admit to laying it on a bit thick.

"Richard," I said, "y'all have priced me out of this."

Richard allowed as to how he would sure hate to lose me as a subscriber after 20 years and I allowed as to how it was breaking my heart too.

He told me to hold on and he would look at some things and see what he might be able to do for me. He even made a bit of small talk as he was looking at whatever it was he was looking at. I had already decided, if they would keep the cost the same, I would keep my subscription.

After a few minutes, he said, "What would you think of 28 dollars a month?"

In as deadpan a voice as I could manage, I told him yes, I thought that would be fine and I could do that. (Remember now, this is LESS than what I was paying when the price increased last August). I told him I would have to have an email confirming this.

The email came and although Richard was unable to promise me the length of time this price would be effective, the first automatic draft just went through and it was about three bucks less than the quoted price!

So for now, I remain a subscriber. If they unreasonably jack up the price again, I plan to call and whine and threaten to cancel again.

Wife was so impressed she said she might let me call the cable and phone company. I told her I'm not that good.

But it just goes to show just about everything is negotiable. My man Richard came through for me.