Having usually enjoyed Heather Mallick’s writing in the Toronto Star, there was some consternation the other day when reading her piece extolling Torstar’s electronic output. While you never blame the writer for the headline, “Beyond the paywall lies a beautiful vista” should have been warning of the confusing pap to come. Heather might best be advised not to seek a future career in public relations.
While we sympathize with the Toronto Star’s wish for better profitability, this is not going to be done at any cost to this subscriber. There are those of us left who prefer our newspaper on the table beside our coffee in the morning. There is that special feel of newsprint that we cherish. The person who delivers our Toronto Star every morning (except Sunday) by 5 a.m. tells us that we not only have the slowest elevator in Babel but we are the only Toronto Star subscriber in this high-rise building. (We will remember that come Christmas.)
But Heather’s heavy-handed attempt to tell us of the joys of paying for the Star’s electronic edition fell on deaf ears. After all, Babel-on-the-Bay provides you with reasonably well thought out opinions for free. And there are days when the Toronto Star’s opinions are worth about as much. And they are also getting advertising revenue! (Do you see any ads here?)
In our experience, Torstar is not even doing a good job collecting its subscription money. It was two months ago that we first called the Star’s circulation department and asked why the company was charging us so much for our subscription. That was when we were told that someone had their Star Dispatches charged to our subscription. This was compounded because we called again today to question our charges and found that the Star Dispatches had never been cancelled. The person in circulation (a very noisy call centre) told us that they could not give us the money back for the four months but only two. There was no time to ask for the person’s manager.
Frankly, Torstar has yet to prove that the company is adept, creative and able to build a logical pathway for on-line news reporting. Yes, the print edition is slow and cumbersome but it allows readers to self-edit a view of their world. What programmers do not understand is that people need to back up as easily as they can go forward. And every little fancy step they add to the electronic presentation is just another snare waiting to trip the unwary reader.
Heather’s “opinion” piece for the electronic edition is not up to her usual standards. It is disjointed, overwritten, irrelevant, confusing, personal, vulgar (the gratuitous comment on Mr. Weiner’s penis should have been edited out) and fails to sell us on paying for the Toronto Star on-line. Maybe Rosie DiManno enjoys writing stuff like that but Heather, you can do better.
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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