By Peter Payette [3]
Readers of the Traverse City Record-Eagle online now need to pay to read most current local news. The paper put up a pay-wall starting this week.
Publisher Mike Casuchelli says most of the Record-Eagle's online content will continue to be free, including breaking news. But the local reporting will require a subscription.
"We have a staff of 148 people that we have to pay to help produce and distribute our daily newspaper. So there are some fixed costs there," he says.
Many newspapers across the country are creating pay walls for some or all of their news and other online content, a trend expected to grow.
"It makes sense for a paper in a smallish town in a way that it might not for a metro paper like the Detroit papers because they have a franchise position of being the main provider in a given town," says Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Insitute.
The Petoskey News-Review continues to publish most of its local news reports online at no cost to the reader.
The Ludington Daily News puts abbreviated stories up on the web and directs readers to the printed or electronic editions for the full reports.