I like to begin my day reading the morning newspaper while I eat my breakfast. I will even admit that I read the comics first since I prefer to start my day with a smile instead of a frown. The daily newspaper, however, is an endangered species as newspaper publishers struggle to compete with the free content available on the Internet. On October 19, The New York Times announced that it was eliminating 100 jobs in the newsroom.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/business/media/20times.html?em

Newspapers, including our local Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, have developed Web sites to bring their content to the Internet, but the industry is struggling with shrinking advertising revenue. Some newspapers are considering charging for content and are experimenting with various models. The Post-Gazette recently debuted a new service with enhanced content and interactive features called PG+, describing it as having “exclusive content and unparalleled access to Post-Gazette columnists and reporters, invitations to special events, and offers and perks.”

http://plus.sites.post-gazette.com/

Visitors using this link can chose to join immediately or view some introductory material that describes the content before making the decision to join. According to this introduction, members will be able to create their own profiles and interact with both Post-Gazette journalists and other PG+ members. Exclusive sports features will include Steelers Insight, Pitt Stop videos from Paul Zeise, the PSU Blog by Ron Musselman, High School Edition video reports by Mike White, and a sports humor column entitled, Two Minute Warning, by Gene Collier. Political coverage on PG+ will offer Face-off Live!, a daily live debate between Reg Henry and Jack Kelly, On the Potomac by Daniel Malloy who reports on Washington as a Pittsburgher, and Rob’s Rough Cut, a sneak peek at the next day’s political cartoon. Entertainment and Lifestyle sections include music reviews by Scott Mervis and Andrew Druckenbrod, daily photographs of life in Pittsburgh by photographer Larry Roberts, Bob Hoover’s book chats with local authors, Dan Oster’s gardening column and Mackenzie Carpenter’s Omnivore described as a “smart, irreverent take on the news of the day.”

And then there are the perks. Members receive a membership card that can be shown to participating local retailers for special deals and discounts. Each Tuesday, a special weekly perk will be posted. The special perk could be VIP access to Steelers Kickoff, free tickets to local events, or chances to win Steelers tickets or tickets to special movie screenings. Members are also promised insider access to exclusive events including “PG Talks,” a series featuring Post-Gazette columnists and reporters. and VIP access to events in the city.

An annual membership is $36 and includes a free book, Super Six, on the Steelers most recent season. The book is available while supplies last. For those not ready to commit to an entire year, monthly access is also available for $3.99 per month. Payment is handled through PayPal with monthly access handled as a subscription that automatically renews.

After viewing the promotional material, I decided to try the service for one month. I was least interested in the social networking features such as the ability to have “friends” or post on a blog. For me, it is all about the content. I was pleased to find the content that was promised in the advertising, plus some additional features. I was also surprised to see how much of the content was video content. Quite a few of the videos are conversations between reporters and columnists in the newsroom, but I enjoyed Andrew Druckenbrod’s interview with William Caballero, principal horn of the Pittsburgh Symphony in Heinz Hall.

The opening page of PG+ displays a changing marquee of the latest news-worthy updates to the site.  Clicking on the image for the story leads to the page on which it appears. It might be more accurate to use the word “item” rather than “story” since the information could be a blog post, a video, a chat transcript, or a more traditional news article. I was quite amused this afternoon when one of the features on the marquee was a picture of a fuzzy caterpillar accompanied by text promising that Doug Oster would explain what it meant if you’d seen one this fall. Since I saw one outside the door when I arrived at the library this morning, I quickly clicked on the picture. In a blog post, Doug Oster explained that the ratio of orange fur middle to black fur ends predicts the harshness of the winter. The more orange fur, the milder the winter.

The home page also has brief descriptions of some of the latest additions to the site including blog posts and articles, the latest headlines in a breaking news section, and member comments in Sound Off. There were also links to the promised perks in sections called Perk-olating, PG+ Member Perks, and Extra Perks. The first section, Perk-olating had offers of free tickets to a Fiddlesticks concert, Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus, and half-off tickets to Forever Plaid at the CLO Cabaret. In some cases there were only a limited amount of tickets available. Last week’s Extra Perk was a buy one ticket, get the second one free offer for balcony seats at the Keb’ Mo’ concert at the Palace Theatre in Greensburg on October 30. This week it was the opportunity to win a set of four movie passes to an advance screening of The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

I haven’t decided yet if I will continue my subscription to PG+ beyond this first month. I would like to see even more content, especially in areas like food, fashion, and art where photos and videos could go far beyond the typical printed newspaper. I’m also interested to see how the latest e-book readers, including the rumored Apple tablet, might handle newspapers. Maybe soon, I’ll be reading my newspaper on a tablet at breakfast.