So I still subscribe to The Philadelphia Inquirer. It’s our regional paper and I’ve had so many friends who have worked for them and still have a couple who work for them, so I like to support their writing. I still support their writing even though I get the countless solicitation emails from the Inquirer/Lenfest Institute. And the subscription even if it’s just online, isn’t inexpensive these days. I only do online subscription because all of the newspapers have gotten so small in print that it feels like the ad circular for the grocery store.

But the Inquirer has these ads. They are pervasive and I guess click bait. I don’t know why they can’t adjust the coding so it’s not the first thing we see? I am not a prude but I am sick of my morning paper with a side of boobs. An ad before this was something geared towards men with erectile dysfunction. That was August. These ads appear every day in my email announcing my daily newspaper.

And I totally get that newspapers need ad revenue but I also digitally subscribe to the New York Times and Washington Post. Neither one of them give me ads like this.

So I find this kind of offensive, and again I’m not a prude. But this is the kind of ad revenue they generate? I think that’s a little bit in poor taste.

And that is my one complaint about the digital edition of the Inquirer: all of the ads and so many of them are less than if I’m being nice. If I’m not being nice I don’t need ads about erectile dysfunction and tits in my face when I’m reading the paper in the morning. I also think a lot of these ads objectify women and I am not a super women’s libber and never have been.

Every time I see one of these ads I wonder what is it I am paying for? I want to read the articles but I’m paying a fair amount for a digital subscription now and I can’t imagine how much more expensive ad free would be and I don’t know that they can offer ad free because they need advertising sales.

My final bit of wondering, is would they care if someone like me was no longer a subscriber? I can answer that question and the answer is probably not. But I can’t be the only one that wishes this isn’t what smacked you in the face with your morning digital newspaper and throughout whatever it is you read on their website in general. Of course it’s also quite possible that I’m just old-fashioned and this is the sad future of journalism.

Thanks for stopping by.