JSOnline Makes You Pay, and Brewers Coverage Won't Be the Same

I had heard the news that the Journal Sentinel wanted you to pay to use their website. I had also heard that you could visit 20 "articles" for free a month. What I didn't know was how much of a crock this was going to be.

First of all, for Brewer fans there is the Brewers BLOG. Yeah that's right, a blog. A blog is something that you can only visit online. That is the only forum you can see a blog in. Basically what it is is an insider breaking news post to alert people instantly before the information gets fleshed out, updated and posted to an actual article. Did I mention that the only way you can see a blog is online, not in the paper newspaper that people pay for?

I noticed that by only reading these blogs, I got a notification that I could only read a few more for free. UMM HELLO? I pay Time Warner every month to use the internet, and blogs are something you can only access on the internet, not in a print edition of the newspaper. In short, I am not "raiding" the Journal Sentinel of any money by accessing their BLOGS. If I was reading their actual articles online (You know the ones published in the newspaper) then maybe we could talk about how I am not properly giving money to the Journal Sentinel.

What's going to be worse is spring training. Remember all the cool features like getting to know a certain player and other "cactus juice" tidbits? For every one game played there could be potentially five places for you to click with the different features posted, and those five places you click will all be counted against your 20 allotted views for the month.

During the regular season, it will be the same way. There is the game wrap, the "clubhouse confidential notes" which includes the attendance up to this point and various other things of interest, and the "full count" post which is a key stat to watch. For each baseball game played there could be a number of items to click on.

I guess the biggest beef I had was with the stuff they are charging for that is indeed "online only" and this goes beyond brewer coverage. You want an up to the minute weather forecast? Or how about reading a post from the associated press about various news items from the day, which is linked on the jsonline site? Yep that will cost you a click against your 20, even though you definitely wouldn't wait till the paper comes out the next morning to read that stuff when you can find it posted online right away up to the minute. That's if the actual physical paper would even put the AP stuff in there, I don't know. Any blogs, from sports to business to the online chats that are posted by writers to the relationships blogs to the tv critic blogs should NOT be counted against what you can get for free.

Main point: I don't have a problem with trying to gain an edge in today's growing and competitive marketplace. I completely understand things change and the world is not the same as it once was. However you people at the Journal Sentinel really need to understand what exactly people should be paying for and what they should not be paying for. I cannot live with the complete and utter bologna that you guys consider "links you should be paying for."

From now on I get my sports news from other sources such as FoxSports, OnMilwaukee.com, KFFL, Brewers Bar, MLB Trade Rumors, Milwaukee Magazine, and others.

Thanks for being fun JS!