Detroit has two papers … one leans conservative, the other more liberal. The Sunday edition is a combined paper from both papers. Delivery for the paper to which we subscribe is only available Thursday, Friday & Sunday. We pay for digital + delivery, but we don’t read the digital edition (we prefer to read a “real” paper to digital). We pay for daily, though, because we feel it is important to support our local paper. They have done some excellent investigative reporting, including reporting on the Flint water crisis.
I dread this question IRL. I grew up daily reading the main paper in whatever city we lived in.
My local paper is useless as a traditional newspaper or source of interesting, relevant, local (ish) news. I joke you can cover it in 5 minutes. I learned to keep my mouth shut about those feelings.
In contrast, I want to put in a plug for the writers, themselves. Fascinating, such a wealth of contextual information, seem able to speak endlessly on a topic. Whether or not it’s something I’m particularly interested in, I’m glued.
Glued? To the radio. Lots of in-depth interviews. Hooray for the talent.
We used to subscribe to the evening local paper, home delivery. It got bought out by the company that does the morning paper and the free once weekly paper.
We now subscribe to the only remaining paper (whose price is steadily increasing and is now like $360/yr or so). We get the print edition delivered and also free E-edition, which son reads in DC.
It does not do much investigative reporting of any sort and cut its staff back greatly. It’s still our only paper, so we try to be supportive. Has mostly AP and UPI articles.
I subscribe to and read the local paper and the NYT seven days a week. The local paper is McClatchy and will cease Saturday publication soon. As it is, the paper barely exists on Monday and Tuesday. But I’ll keep subscribing because I love reading the paper and I want to support it in whatever form they can manage.
After increases each year, decline in the size and quality, we made the decision just to get the Sunday edition (along with online). The Sunday edition is about half the size that it was 35 years ago. It’s really sad, as I always enjoyed and still do, reading a hard copy vs.online.
I gave up my digital subscription to our local paper 3 years ago based on two things - the fact that the paper is largely just a patchwork of wire service reports with minimal local reporting and their editorial page opinions. They don’t publish on Mondays here either. During the school year, I can pick up a free educational copy in our library building on Tuesdays - Fridays. I do miss having a print copy of the paper on Sundays, but had moved to digital in 2009, so clearly I don’t miss it enough to change my choices.
As well, the digital subscription price had become ridiculous, IMO. I subscribe to digital access for both WaPo and The Tennessean for less than what I was being charged for about 3 months of digital access to local paper.
The Washington Post is my local paper. We cancelled print delivery a couple of years ago but keep the digital edition.
I don’t have time to read the paper in the morning so the print version doesn’t work for me.
Since Maine is so small, the Portland paper serves as the main one for the entire state. They write some excellent investigative stories. I hope it survives - otherwise, local and state governments won’t have much accountability. 
It used to be that I could not go to bed without reading the paper - it would come in the morning but I often didn’t have down time till evening. It makes me sort of sad to not have that habit anymore. Instead I catch up on news on Twitter, etc. I do also have the NYT digital edition.
I started college studying Journalism but quickly switched majors. (liked writing but realized I didn’t like churning it out in volume). Makes me wonder how current Journalism students are being prepped for the job world.
We hung on to daily print delivery for as long as we could, probably 35 years or so. I do enjoy reading a print paper and loved getting it…until delivery service became so spotty that we hardly ever got the paper before I left for work in the morning. At the same time, rates for print delivery kept climbing. So, finally, about a month ago, we switched to digital only. Had a big fight with the newspaper and they gave me a pretty low rate so I’m good with it.
I mostly miss the Sunday paper so I send H out to get a copy at the store if we want it. I refuse to pay for delivery again…
Took the local paper daily home delivery until 10 years ago. Then just stopped. The past year they changed to paper W-S and digital daily. Don’t miss it. Found myself only reading the obits the last few years.
I don’t know who delivers my paper these days (WSJ and local paper come together) but they are REALLY good. I can count on it being there by 5:30 am unless there is a significant weather event either locally or around the flight route. I had a terrible guy about 18 months ago. He was inconsistent - late or it didn’t come at all- and when I would call his number (he asked that we call him and not file a report) he always had an excuse. He finally got fired and had the nerve to put a note for everyone in our mailboxes asking for a final tip since he had served us so well and had been fired just because his car broke down. Um, no.
@MaineLonghorn , the Portland Press Herald and literally all other print publications in the state are owned by one man. Many are operating in the black, surprisingly enough.
@Massmomm, I didn’t realize that. Good to know!
I have an online subscription to the NYT and WaPo.
My local paper has a print addition every day. It will likely be around for a long time as my city is the State Capital and a lot of the reporting revolves around that.
I read it online until my free articles are up.
Our local paper (last I saw it was top 20 in circulation) went to 4 day delivery several years ago. Still prints every day just won’t deliver on those days. We had gotten it since we were married. Kept it when they went do 4 day delivery. Other days you could read it online. I got to the point that reading it online was all I did. We then switched to Sunday delivery and read it the rest of the week online. For some reason, they forgot how to deliver the Sunday paper to our house about a year ago. Called several times. Sent emails. Never got resolution. Stopped paying for it. Now they call me and ask if they can get me signed up again. I tell them I need to see them deliver the paper for a month before I will pay for it. Doesn’t appeal to them apparently so now we go without. Not really missing it.
One of the early issues of the predecessor to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published the text of the newly-adopted US Constitution. Just a few months ago, the city had its first day since then without the paper, as it went digital four days a week.
I wasn’t a subscriber, so I can’t really complain about the decision, but it was a sad day, IMHO.
The PG and Pittsburgh Press merged in the 90’s and the other major daily went digital three years ago.
We get the NYT delivered every day. I live in a very small town (circa 5,000 population). We have a weekly paper–at one time there were 2 weekly papers. The publishers of the current paper are local and they’re having trouble getting writers as well as subscribers. Recently, they asked for people to become sustaining subscribers, i.e., to renew their subscriptions for $100-$500 (regular subscription is $30-40). I did become a substaining subscriber because I like to read about town politics and, of course, the police report. I stopped subscribing to my larger metro paper because of home delivery issues–I switched to the digital version, but found that I was deleting it quite often and decided to stop.
Timely thread. We get the local paper 7 days a week. It’s not well written and my husband and I often joke about the challenge of figuring out what certain articles are talking about. They often miss the who, what, when why and where. This morning I called the Philadelphia Inquirer to finally cancel our Sunday only (digital 7 days) paper after decades of subscribing. The reason - the cost of $5.25 a week!! Once on the phone, I was offered half of that price. I agreed. I also subscribe to the NYT and Washington Post digital editions.
I feel strongly about supporting local news and think there’s a viscious circle where the newspapers cut local reporters and, in general, editors, and the quality goes downhill so subscribers cut the newspaper and then the quality goes down further. My kids read the newspaper here when they come home but would never subscribe to a hard copy newspaper.
For years and years, we got the LA Times delivered. But the price was getting ridiculous. By the time we dropped it, the subscription was running $700 a year! You could play games and drop the subscription, sign up again for the ‘introductory rate’ but eventually the huge prices would kick in.
I used to see the delivery man throwing the papers to almost everyone on our street. No more.
I save so much paper trash by reading the news online