Jackson Jambalaya

I get my info from twitter. Screw the Clarion Ledger and its liberal readers.

Micah is right. There are many sources available that are more timely and accessible than the Clarion-Liar. At one time it might have been the "source of record," but it has lost most of that over the last few years. If I want better info I tune into the TV stations, National Weather Service online, or the Sun Herald which is still free.

What he said^

Options;
Twitter
Facebook
Blogs
Weather Channel
Weather Underground
Bing Weather
Google Weather
Wapt
Wjtv
Wlbt
Local fox
Weather Radio
etc etc

There are many other BETTER websites to get the information from, such as NWS and Weather Channel plus any of the local network's websites.

CL is rarely current anyway.

They will bury themselves quicker than previously expected. Hey, who cares.

I'm schocked they are still in business, I thought the Clarion Ledger had died years ago. But I'm sure they already have the "Issac: 2012 Special Edition" ready for print and willing to bill you for what you can get for free from the weather channel site.....

Are these profiteers part of the 1%, gouging people whose lives may be at stake for the sake of filthy profits? Of wait, only Republicans do that......

Who in their right mind would be looking in a newspaper for information about weather?

That's like waiting until Sunday morning to find out what your favorite college football team did Saturday.

There are some changes in the way critical information is passed since the invention of the printing press.

Telegraph (19th Century), Radio (1920s), Television (1940s), and the Internet (apparently yesterday).

Come on people. You don't like the Clarion-Ledger, fine. But why this kind of stuff.

I meant website.

Lots of additional opportunity to bash the paper. Seems a favorite of this blog.

They have a right to restrict their property to paid members. Like it or lump it. If it were the sole, exclusive site where one could find this information, that might be different. It's not.

When gas stations run out of gas, does a distributor have a public obligation to pump it free? Free ice is one thing; but, bread and ribeyes? The Ledger is within its rights. You can always go over to WLBT and try to figure out what Paul Williams is blabbering about.

The CL is irrelevant. That paywall is just another nail in their coffin.

I'm not bashing. I'm asking a serious ethical question. In the days of paywalls, what are a media outlet's public safety obligations?

I'm not sure who in their right mind would go to the Clarion Ledger online for information on the hurricane. Between social media and weather.com, its irrelevant. Might make for a good law school ethics discussion, but the real world passed the CL by a long time ago.

I think you pose an interesting question, KF. "In the days of paywalls, what are a media outlet's public safety obligations?"

You would think that public safety would rise above all else. I understand that there are several outlets for information, but I would think any type of serious safety information for the public would be one item that should be available to all.

The minute a governor declares a state of emergency, certain information should be free and accessible to the public. There may be only 4 people who would choose the CL as an option, but those 4 should have access to emergency info.

I think their hurricane coverage should be open to the public. Look at The Weather Channel. They survive based on advertisers and (cable) subscribers, just like the C-L. But they do not require that you input your Comcast account number to access their web content.

And, KF, you don't have to post the comments that don't contribute to thoughtful discussion.

Two reasons the C/L should go ahead and put the hurricane - and any other weather related information - in a publicly available spot on their web site. First, it's ethical to do so, even when there are many other sources for the same information. Second, they could make some money. A hurricane update icon would be a great place for an advertiser to stick in a pop up, and the C/L could charge a premium for this advertising. In reality, I agree with many of the posters above in that not very many people go to the C/L web site for their hurricane updates so it's probably a moot point.

The CL doesn't block you completely. You can still see about 10 articles as a visitor.

There is a hurricane? Where?

Kaptain, that was literally my response to Katrina around this time.

Whats a Clarion Ledger?

If you need good info, of course, you have to go to the best....

http://www.myfoxhurricane.com/

had to look twice, Kapt. Thought that was the local fox40. They fell out of my news rotation when their reporting seemed to be coming straight from AG press release.

I just stumbled upon it recently when I realized the CL was going to shut down my online access to weather. Oh the horror! ;-)

You guys are causing 9:48 quite a bit of anal itch.

No. Forgetting whether the CL is relevant or not. In my (humble, as always) opinion, that is not the issue, nor is it the question that KF has posed.

The CL is not a regulated "public utility" and thus getting something from the public (other than their tax status). This differentiates it from the television and radio stations that are using the public airwaves.

IF - big "if" - the CL, as a private business, decides that it would be good for their business to offer this info outside of their firewall, then they can/will do it.

As to my friend Bill's suggestion, if they found that to be a good business concept, they could and probably would do it. But if they choose not to, why should anyone think that they should?

In decades past, obviously prior to Al Gore giving us the internet, local media was the only source for information such as this. But then - as now - the print media couldn't help much on timely issues such as the current status/position of events such as a hurricane. Even so, the print media did give us worthwhile info that we needed albeit not the timely info we expect in today's environment.

Let the CL be - I choose not to participate with a subscription. That is my choice. Others might want it - happy for them to do so. But if I make the decision that I don't need their information, either related to hurricanes or anything else, that is my choice. Why should they be expected to GIVE me anything? (That, again in my 'humble' opionion, is the problem with our country today - people who expect to be given something. Just because they 'should' be given it.)

The early hurricane stories on C-L were behind the meter, but now it has been opened up as free content.

Now, say that I-55 contraflow is ordered, the coast counties are directed to evacuate, etc. -- I *do* think that would be wrong for the C-L to paywall, where it's not a matter of me looking for info I could get anywhere, but rather a matter of shouting something out by every available means to ensure maximum public awareness.

It would be like MPB restricting its tornado warnings to households that had donated in their last fundraiser.

Listenting to Rick and Bubba this morning, they do a segment with James Spann for weather. Once update was done, one gentlemen asked if Spann would take a message back to the idiot who couldn't seem to say Mississippi. It was spot on and hilarious.

The guy reeled off relatives' names and towns they lived in (My uncle in Biloxi, my sister in Bay St. Louis, etc) and kept saying--and that's in Mississippi. It was ended with the gentlement saying--you want to take that message back to that idiot, Spann saying--I believe he's gotten the message.

The Clarion-Ledger has free viewing without restriction to anyone online. It was mandated by the publisher yesterday.

"We also will open up the web site and mobile site so that full access is afforded to everyone. This, we’ll do as a public service, even though we have enacted our new subscription model. It will be open during the duration of the storm."

So there you go. What will we talk about now?

They read this site. ;-)

I meant the post as a pure exercise in ethics, not a criticism of the paper. Its a new world in the media and this is one of the issues that will arise as things transition to a digital world.

For conservatives, you people are awful quick to demand free stuff (or, at least, declare it only "ethical" to give it away). What about healthcare? That a public safety issue? What about the AC in 100 degree weather for a disabled 80 year old? Public safety issue? Clean water? Sewer? Legal representation? Education? Internet access? Electricity?

I agree that MPB should freely broadcast everything (the P is for Public) because your tax dollars help pay for part of it. But is the owner of a public business under an ethical obligation to take money out of his own pocket to pay an employee to build and update and gather news for a website and then give that product away for free?

I don't agree with Pete on much, but at least he doesn't change his definition of "ethical" every time his pocket book is affected.

Now the JFP is re-writing AP wire stories just as they bitched all those years about the Ledger doing the same. Boy Howdy!