While responding to a friend’s Facebook post wondering what had happened to all the Canada geese at Strouds Run State Park near Athens, I recalled an article the newspaper I edited, The Athens News, ran years ago about the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ addressing the problem by ordering the euthanization of 46 “nuisance geese” at the popular state park beach. Hammers were used to execute that order, which prompted consternation among many of our readers.
When I went hunting for that article so I could add the link to my comment, I discovered that not only was the article not at athensnews.com, but athensnews.com wasn’t there either! My search was redirected to a 404 error message on the paywalled Athens Messenger website.
It took me a minute or two to process this unhappy (though unsurprising) development. Long story short, it essentially means that a massive amount of local news, entertainment and opinion content from the past 22 years — thousands of Athens News articles that had been free for anyone to read since the moment they went into print or online — suddenly has been locked in a cage, available only to those willing to subscribe to the digital Athens Messenger.
And among that small group, few will realize that the vast population of Athens News content is now packed cheek to jowl with Athens Messenger content behind the corporate Adams MultiMedia paywall.
And one more indignity: If, equipped with your Athens Messenger digital subscription, you manage to find an old Athens News article, editorial, letter, band preview or whatever, you’ll find the piece with an Athens Messenger banner hanging above it, with little or no evidence that it originally appeared in the Athens News.
Because I do have one of those digital subscriptions to the Messenger, I can access that content. But I can’t share articles, which often is the whole point of finding an old piece of local interest.
I’m not naive. This is the basic status quo these days for most media websites. Additionally, I do realize that termination of the athensnews.com website was just a matter of time, after Adams MultiMedia stopped printing the newspaper this past January. This was despite Adams MultiMedia’ promises then “to bring the (online) publication to a more digital forward format” (a line that still makes me chortle).
I also understand that Adams MultiMedia couldn’t be expected to keep offering A News content for free on a separate dedicated website, when its Messenger content is paywalled on athensmessenger.com. Once they decided to dismantle athensnews.com, they either had to kill the A-News archive or migrate it into the Athens Messenger archive. At least that’s how I understand it.
But I hope that Adams MultiMedia at some point considers donating searchable Athens News archival material (most of which is available in issue-by-issue PDF format) to Ohio University Libraries, Athens County Public Libraries and/or the Southeast Ohio History Center.
Oh, and for anyone still waiting for me to admit my own ulterior motive: Yes, I’d love to see all my old articles and columns once again freely available online.
Terry Smith
Meadow Lane
Athens