TOPIC:

JT wrote: FYI

As WAFL supporters, you are entitled to your views on the quality and quantity of The West Australian’s coverage of the league.

However, as one of the main WAFL reporters at the newspaper, I can point to the fact that we mostly provide two pages of coverage in both the Pregame and Game lift-outs on Fridays and Mondays, at least one page with listed teams on Saturdays, a weekly online column on thewest.com.au and other news – tribunal, injuries, etc - throughout the week.

That often means that at least 12 stories are published every week – all on a league that exists in the shadow of the AFL.

I can also tell you that I have never been instructed to write stories in any particular way to suit the views of the newspaper, the WAFL or Channel 7. I am sure our other reporters would say the same thing.

Our reporters are passionate about football, including the WAFL, and want to see it thrive.

Keep buying and reading The West Australian and you can help in that regard.

See you at the football,

John Townsend

Unfortunately John, your articles will be read by fewer people from now on. The newspaper has shrunk in size since the website has switched to making people pay to view articles. I wont be paying $1.70 a day for a newspaper with less in it than it had a month ago, and I definitely wont be paying $1 a day to view articles on the website. I'll go to other news websites that dont have a limit or charge to read the online content.

Love you and your work JT but your employer has completely and utterly fuct itself in the ear.

Anyone with the subscription willing to share the article today "Bush and 'Burbs: Top 50 Country and Amateur Players"? A bit sneaky but local content like this should not cost extra when its not in the daily paper.

Blunder wrote: Anyone with the subscription willing to share the article today "Bush and 'Burbs: Top 50 Country and Amateur Players"? A bit sneaky but local content like this should not cost extra when its not in the daily paper.

I doubt anyone sharing a story from The West with a subscription will give anyone without a subscription access to the full story. You have to be logged in on your browser as a subscriber. They will come to their senses eventually. $12 a month for all 7 editions and I'll sign up as a subscriber. Give me the online printed editions, I don't need the paper delivered.

Copy and paste or screenshot surely...

Then have to reduce size of the image to less than 100kb. Are you prepared to do that?

Here is a teaser planted by The West on their “B” side website Perth Now.

www.perthnow.com.au/sport/wafl/footy-sta...in-wa-ng-b881269054z

I reckon that's just about done it for me. JT's WAFL column of Tuesday's is also a pay per view online. FMD...who would read it other than loyal WAFL supporters which would only be in the 100's I guess? Is Kerry Stokes so devoid of cash that he'd willingly force WAFL supporters to pay to read that stuff? It's a boutique article to a narrow reader base ffs. I get the West and Sunday Times home delivered on weekends but reckon I'll cancel the whole shooting match based on that...they can get stuffed.

BC wrote: I reckon that's just about done it for me. JT's WAFL column of Tuesday's is also a pay per view online. FMD...who would read it other than loyal WAFL supporters which would only be in the 100's I guess? Is Kerry Stokes so devoid of cash that he'd willingly force WAFL supporters to pay to read that stuff? It's a boutique article to a narrow reader base ffs. I get the West and Sunday Times home delivered on weekends but reckon I'll cancel the whole shooting match based on that...they can get stuffed.

Spot on BC but those journos at the West know how much we hang out for any WAFL news articles so they are trying to exploit it.

Yep...whilst I don't agree with it, I can understand that they've chosen to go down the pay per view line and want to maximise their return by locking up articles which have a large public interest or that readers would be willing to pay to see but a weekly WAFL column which would get only a handful of hits at most??? ffs that's just crazy for mine. Hopefully JT reads this and does something about it. I'd also like to see the stats on those who've signed up and pay the dollar a day and compare it to total hit numbers to see what impact it's had on readers viewing online. I used to go online to The West a couple of times a day to see what's happening around the place but can't be bothered now.

Same. The west has missed the boat by about 10 years on this. People who got used to free content resent the change, especially when it comes at a time when quality going really down, and there are no new readers. Death spiral. The only thing worth trying would be to say we are going to raise the quality and make a pitch to support them by paying for content. I’d do it. Instead stokes seems not to care and content to squeeze what he can from it as a channel 7 ad til whole thing falls over. Something will emerge whereby you pay a buck a week for awesome wafl coverage. A couple of thousand subscribers and you’ve got a nice little business. Time to move on from Kerry stokes times unfortunately.