Portland Press Herald Subscribers Should Demand Rebates After Paywall Malfunction In Orwellian ‘Good News, Bad News’ Twist

The good news for the Portland Press Herald is that its malfunctioning paywall may have been fixed after 10 long days.

The bad news is the paid subscribers now may believe they’re due rebates since they had to pay for content that others got to read for free for nearly two weeks.

The state’s largest newspaper’s paywall went rogue late last month in what was supposed to be just a couple days offline.

“Secret insider information,” the paper’s editor posted February 27 on the home page. “We’re tinkering with the website, and for the next couple of days, the paywall is completely shut off. Read all the things for free.”

Tinkering got to be lingering, as it took more than “a couple days” to fix the glitch.

In fact it took at least 10 days and the paywall didn’t go back online until March 10. But then the paywall seemingly broke again, meaning subscribers were still paying for content freeloaders got for, yes, free.

The newspaper suits may now be forced to consider paying rebates to any disgruntled paid subscribers.

The other issue for the daily rag is trying to figure out how much revenue they lost in the two weeks when they could have been picking up additional subscription revenue.

Clearly readers are chomping at the bit to crack open the website of the state’s largest newspaper and read stuff such as was the latest featured story – what to do with leftover tortillas.

“As a cub reporter in the 1990s, an old editor told me that if the same thing pops up three times in a week, there is likely a news story in there somewhere,” wrote Christine Burns Rudalevige. “Given geopolitical goings on lately, I wouldn’t call leftover tortillas news, but I do think they are delicious fodder for a food column.”

Roger that morsel.

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