How is the ol' Chronicle these days? In an age where everythings online (and oddly enough I'd probably want to read it on a future Kindle fire), I was just curious? Worth subscribing to?
That seems like a subjective question. Outside of all the New York papers, the LA Times, the Washington Post, the Globe and the Tribune, aren't most national stories in major papers just AP/UPI feeds anyways?
I read it whenever I stop by my parents home. For most people its probably not worth subscribing to. You'd be paying for primarily local coverage (news, sports, business) because major national news is online. It just depends on how much you value the local coverage; and even then the local coverage is online too. The sports coverage seems a lot worse than it did when I was a kid. Print journalism is starting to pick up the bad habits of new media; i.e. making straw man arguments, purposely taking inflammatory stances, writing in a very informal Simmons-esque manner, etc...
I read newspapers electronically (depending where I am... Huston Chronicle, Seattle Times, and SF Gate (SF Chronicle). I had to drop my subscription to the Chron when I was laid off a few years ago. I can afford again now but I travel so much it seems a waste. That said... I miss the physical aspect of newspapers. The feel of the paper, the sound of pages being turned. Reading while drinking coffee and eating breakfast. And being able to glance over all parts of the paper (vs going right to articles on the web). I know there will be a political aspect of this question... folks lining up one side or the other, pro and con of newspapers in general. But reardless of the content, I miss the aspect of newspapers had over radio, tv, and internet.
I love reading the newspaper and I'm actually one that doesn't dislike the Chronicle as much as most. With that being said, I don't think it's worth subscribing to unless you just really want to have a physical newspaper to flip through. Most everything that is in the physical paper is online at this point.
I read the online version on a daily basis but it is pretty crappy. Even the local stories are summarized versions from Click2Houston, a lot of times with important information left out, bad spelling and grammar, typos. You get confused reading the stories because they will say 'he' four times in a row and refer to 3 different guys. Just horrible all around.
Ditto. The Comical is the worst big city newspaper in the country. I still subscribe, and I don't know why. Recently I took a trip to New Orleans and was pleasantly surprised with the New Orleans Times Picayne. If NO can have a newspaper with great writing, why can't Houston?
Much appreciated on the help. It looks like it's a better choice to just keep getting my news fix from a collection of local houston news sites + pop urls etc
Like most have become these days, it's 60% AP regurgitation, 30% local news feed (and becoming almost twitter esque in its brevity, misinformation, and typos), and 10% hack sports journalism. The redeeming feature of the chron are the few high level insightful bloggers. Steph Stradley and Lance Z almost single handily save the sports. And then there's the sad, sad Anna-Megan Raley's Middle School-level pointless blurbs that the chron still runs out of some sense of pity. Hopefully they at least remove her from the site's multi-twitter feed, it's annoying when she pollutes it with SR610 plugs and nonsensical yammering.
I got a Sunday-only subscription for Christmas this year. I do enjoy reading the actual paper on Sunday mornings. And there's something about reading the sports page and being able to see all the standings and transactions, etc. right there on the page. Their website is just HORRIBLE. Like others have mentioned, most links you click on are just links to poorly written stories from channel 2, 11, or 13. And the headlines don't usually apply to the actual stories. Plus the front page is full of stories about celebrities and Houston society parties. The phone app is even worse. Sometimes they'll have the same story appear 2 or 3 times in a row with a slightly different headline. WTF? And every time I try to customize the little tabs at the bottom, it goes back to the default next time I open it. the 4 default tabs are: Latest news - filled with stories that appear 2 or 3 times in a row Sports - not bad Rick Perry - uh....do we really need a tab for Rick Perry news now? The latest story they have on him in this tab is from January 22nd.... Deals - completely useless tab
We only get the Sunday edition, and it's a mess. We just read Culture Map, Urban City, Paper City, Houston Press, NY Times, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, all online. Less recycling.
Still check it daily even though I haven't lived in Houston for over 30 years. It may be the monitoring stuff my job has loaded, but the Chronicle has packed so many ads and crappy self-loading **** on their page it takes forever to load for me. While I'm at it, I also hate the "ultimate" pages. I just want to click a link and go to a story. Pretty simple. Plus, can we all agree that ****ty bleacher report slideshows should not be a viable "news" link?
