Last night at 8:30 I’m reading to The Little Chit about reptiles (the alligator snapping turtle really is a formidable beast), when the phone rings. On the line is a salesperson who wants to know if I’d be interested in taking home delivery of the News. And he’s got a deal for me. I’ll get Monday through Saturday absolutely free. No charge. “All we ask is that you help us out on Sunday,” he says. “A dollar fifty a week. And we can give you this deal for six months.” I tell him, gee, that sounds like a pretty good deal. I ask where he’s calling from (Phoenix). Then I let him know I work for a magazine in Dallas, and we’ve been following the circulation scandal pretty closely, and I get plenty of the paper at work, for free. After that, he hangs up pretty quickly.
But so what I’m thinking is: if you’re a News home subscriber and you’re paying more than $1.50 a week, you should call them up and renegotiate your rate.
