Editors of both the Yorkshire Evening Post and Lancashire Post have announced that their sites are to go behind a paywall.
They are the latest JPIMedia titles to adopt the model, with readers needing to pay £5.99 a month, or £59.90 a year to have unlimited access to content.
Lancashire Post Editor, Gillian Parkinson explained that the paper’s “independent, high quality journalism” was even more important “with the rise of unregulated content and inaccurate reporting through social media.”
She added:
“But quality journalism costs money and so today we are calling on the support of our loyal readers to sustain this by asking you to subscribe to the lep.co.uk website. Our new subscription is focused on helping you stay in the know and to have an enhanced and more enjoyable online experience. This means fewer advertisements and access to our newsletters,” she wrote.
“It is through the financial support of our readers that we can continue to focus more on the news you want to read about and report more on the issues that matter to you.”
Laura Collins, who was named editor of the YEP less than a year ago, highlighted the newspaper’s campaigning stories and wrote:
“Since I became editor, we’ve launched our own brand of Impact Journalism to use our platform to ensure the voices of our readers and their stories are front and centre of everything that we do.
“And let’s not forget we’ve been with you every single step of the way as our city united in the fight against the once-in-a-generation crisis created by the coronavirus pandemic. We’ve been reporting on those businesses who diversified to stay afloat, showcased the remarkable acts of kindness across Leeds and championed our city’s health workers and key workers.
“But now we need your support to help ensure the YEP can continue to be at the heart of life in Leeds. We’re asking you to pay to read our coverage online as a show of your support in our journalism.
“This is about investing in news right here in Leeds. It’s about protecting that extensive archive that has charted Leeds life since 1890, supporting our award-winning journalists and photographers, and, even more important than that, ensuring the next generation benefits from the same documentation of life in our city.”
