I see you clearing your cookies on your computer to get 10 more free articles for the Sun Sentinel or The Washington Post without having to pay their monthly subscription, and for a while I was like you. I get it, you don’t have the money to pay $5 a month for news, so you cheat the system. It makes sense, but you’re hurting the very institution that you count on for reliable news, and it’s time we started supporting newspapers. They need us.
On Monday, a newspaper you’ve probably never heard of called The Pratt Tribune made a copy editing mistake that would have easily been preventable if they had the funding to hire more editors. The headline read “Students get first hand job experience.” If you read that quickly you might have missed the error, but the words “first” and “hand” should be one word so that it reads “Students get firsthand job experience.” If you’ve made it this far you’re probably wondering why you should care about a little mistake some newspaper you’ve never heard of made. The reason you should care — the reason all of us should care — is because this is what happens when newsrooms are not only overworked, but also understaffed due to lack of funding.
While this might not seem like a big deal to those of you who aren’t in journalism, mistakes like this make decent newspapers look ridiculous. It ruins their credibility, it makes the writers look ignorant and, in a way, it diminishes a reader’s likelihood to believe anything else in this article. This is why, dear readers, I’m going to ask you to support your local newspaper. Whether it’s buying a paper every now and then when you’re home on break or one day becoming an online subscriber to a publication, just do something. Do something to make sure that the source you go to for news isn’t being neglected.
Next to advertisements, the money that you spend for subscriptions is one of the things that keep the printed newspapers and the ones online up and running. Your small subscription fee goes into a huge pool and gets divided not only to help keep a roof over the newsroom, but also to staff reporters, editors and everyone else who works day in and day out, even on weekends and holidays, to provide you with the news. It is important, it is not fake and it matters.
I recognize that I might be a little bit biased because I am a journalist myself. But I’ve experienced firsthand just how hard journalists work. Whether it’s for an impromptu protest, a 24-hour hurricane watch or anything in between, they’re out there working hard for long hours to make sure that you remain informed. The least you can do, in my opinion, is throw them a few bucks once a month.
In addition to the long hours and the sometimes labor-intensive work, journalists also don’t get paid much. In fact, for most journalists in the U.S., salaries fall somewhere between $20,000 to $50,000 a year depending on their location and experience. This isn’t much to live off of.
So why do we do it, you ask? For most of us, we love it. We love talking to people and learning new things, but most importantly, we love informing you about what’s going on in your community, because you deserve to know when your electric company is going to raise your rates or what happened at the latest city council meeting. You deserve to know, and we want you to be informed, so pay the fee and be the better person.
As famous journalist Walter Cronkite once said: “Journalism is what we need to make democracy work.” We are as much a part of your hometown as your local schools, police stations and libraries, so give us the same support you give them.
Sara Marino is a UF journalism senior. Her column appears on Wednesdays.
