Mary Mann and Carolyn Maynard-Parisi, VillageGreenNJ.com. Photo credit: Jamie Meier.
Dear Readers,
You may have noticed something new on The Village Green this week: we’ve instituted a limited paywall.
If you’re already a paid subscriber to our daily e-newsletter, you’re automatically in — no need to do anything to get behind that wall. Just sign in with the email you used to make the original purchase. (And thanks for your support!)
If you aren’t a current subscriber, you can read up to five free articles a month on our site. You can also access our Home Page, our newly expanded Events Calendar and our Business Directory for free. And you can sign up for our FREE newsletter to get a daily snapshot of what’s happening in the towns in your mailbox every morning.
To read more than five Village Green articles a month, we’ll ask you to “pay the toll” ($39/year, $15 quarterly or $5 month-to-month) for your fix of local news.
Why a paywall? Gathering news costs money. The kind of content we feature every day on The Village Green — local stories brought to you by journalists who ask questions, attend meetings, know the issues and the community, and follow up on readers’ suggestions and comments — takes time, skill and a willingness to tackle sometimes thorny issues with humanity and fairness. We don’t just aggregate what other media have written; nor do we “drop in” for the big stories then disappear. We cover the towns day in, day out. We’re here for the long haul.
To ensure the sustainability of The Village Green, we need to generate diverse revenue streams, and a paywall is an important part of that. (We are also looking to boost our Business Directory and Classifieds down the road.)
Of course, we will continue to rely on our wonderful local business community, which supports The Village Green through advertising. But it is neither fair nor smart business practice to expect advertisers to foot the entire bill.
We’ll be monitoring the paywall as we go, potentially adjusting it based on feedback and performance.
And we expect there will be some kinks to iron out in the first few days of implementation. If you’re having difficulties, email us at villagegreennj@gmail.com.
The revenue the paywall generates will help to ensure the continuation of Village Green for years to come and enable us to expand our coverage to give readers even more local news, with bylines from more diverse writers and photographers.
We value our readers, and we hope you value us. Thanks for your continued support. Drop us a line at villagegreennj@gmail.com with any questions or comments.
See you around SOMA,
Mary Mann and Carolyn Maynard-Parisi
