Archived Story
Sharing opinions is reasonable price
Published 12:00am Sunday, June 3, 2012Big Brother isn’t watching. No one is trying to steal your identity. Your answers won’t open the floodgates for junk mail or spam.
We simply want to know what you think. More specifically, national corporations and marketing firms want to know Americans’ opinions on all kinds of things.
By now visitors to The Tribune’s website have probably been asked to answer a few questions each day in order to access the full content of local news and sports.
The partnership with Google is easy to use and takes just a second or two. Those who don’t want to answer a question can instead share the article on social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter to gain full access.
This was not a decision that was made lightly but is simply a product of the ever-evolving structure of how news organizations afford to gather and disseminate information and remain a viable business at the same time.
The Internet has long perplexed the newspaper industry — and dozens of other content-rich industries such as magazine publishers and television producers — as everyone is trying to figure out the perfect balance between serving readers and giving away for free something that costs money to produce.
Many companies have opted to charge readers through paid websites or provide limited access to non-paying readers.
Our partnership with Google is an effort to continue to provide our readers in Lawrence County and beyond with free news in an electronic format.
We are not asking for your money, simply a few seconds of your time.
Each day readers will be asked to answer one or two questions to have near total access to the site.
That’s it.
Questions range from general ones about purchasing habits to specific ones about watching a particular show or choosing which advertisement is more appealing.
Here are a few examples:
Which one of these food items would you prefer to eat while watching a sporting event?
Popcorn
Pizza
Chicken wings
Chips
Hot dog
How important is new technology when considering a new vehicle?
Not at all important
Somewhat important
Very important
Which of the following have you heard of?
Amazon App Store
Google Play
Apple iTunes
Windows Phone Marketplace
BlackBerry App World
Some areas of the website including police reports, lawsuits, land transfers and other courthouse records will be handled slightly differently and a question must be answered on each individual story.
Ultimately, we want to serve our readers and provide the news in this format free of charge. This helps us to do that.
The Tribune will continue to be the best source for comprehensive news about Lawrence County, as it has been for more than 150 years.
How the news is delivered or accessed may have changed, but the basic tenets have not.
We strive to: Be factual. Be fair. Be interesting. Be relevant.
Those fundamentals will not change regardless of the format.
We also promise that the information provided in the simple surveys will not be linked back to you or cause you any headaches going forward.
Only the aggregated survey results — not individual answers — are provided to the people seeking to pick America’s collective brain.
Asking you to share your opinions seems like a far better choice than asking you to spend your hard-earned money.
Michael Caldwell is publisher of The Tribune. To reach him, call (740) 532-1445 ext. 24 or by e-mail at mike.caldwell@irontontribune.com. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeCaldwell_IT.
I understand that answering questions here may not by part of big brother. Big brother otherwise is watching what we say but this only came to light following lawsuit with the Freedom of Information act. There is an agency that not only watches for terrorist activity but also anyone that says anything counter to the government and so goes Obama and his big brother actions against average american citizens. This paper knows this and it fears saying anything counter to big Gov.;t. The list of words that are in this list of anti-terroist or anti-american is real. Asked the marine that was thrown out of the marine corp for his statements against the president.
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Mike;That only happened to me one time. I do not have a problem with answering the questions. If it happens again I will let you know. Thanks for the reply.
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I tried to read an article the other day and could not read it unless I shared on facebook or twitter of which I use neither so I just clicked off. I do not mind answering a question or two.
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Big Kahuna,
It should be an either/or option. If you don’t want to answer a question then an alternative is to share on social media.
If it ends up not working like that or you see something different, please let me know.
Thanks.
Mike Caldwell
mike.caldwell@irontontribune.com
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Michael Caldwell; I was waiting for an explanation, although, I already knew the answer. My compliments on an excellent presentation and description. Like, Mike Haney, I was being “stubborn” and just “clicking off”. Best of luck in the Tribunes new endeavor at survival. However, I must take exception to your comment “the best source for comprehensive news about Lawrence County (Tribune), as it has been for more than 150 years”. I can remember the days when the old Ironton News, with reporters of the caliber of Paul W. Sierer and James W. Akers were cause for the Tribune taking second seat.
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We also promise that the information provided in the simple surveys will not be linked back to you or cause you any headaches going forward.
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Thank you for the explanation. At first I was just clicking off, stubborn I guess. Your word is good enough for me, and would like to see the Tribune stick around. Thanks again.
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