You've probably scrolled through social media numerous times, saw a headline that interest you and the initial response was to click to read more.
But when a box pops up prompting you to purchase a subscription to read the desired content, the interest wanes and you return to looking at memes, video clips and recipes.
This occurs because a lot of things online don't require payment to view. Journalism isn't like most things on the internet.
As part of National Newspaper Week, our managing editor Gary Castor wrote a column that included an explanation why journalism is not a free service.
Check out From the Editor: Free lunch? No such thing to read his take.
Here's the sports side of it.
Our four-person sports department already provides numerous free services, mainly on Twitter.
We post scores and play updates on games, take videos and photos, and remind football fans to listen to our Goal Lines podcasts, which don't require a subscription.
Only the content we publish in print and on our website isn't provided at no charge.
This is sounding like a "buy one, get four free deal," because it basically is.
Sounds like a bargain considering what it costs for those stories to be written and photos to be taken each day.
Take high school football games for example. We cover each home and road game for Jefferson City, Helias and Blair Oaks, which includes a preview story in our Goal Lines section each Friday and two game recaps.
That alone is worth a daily subscription.
Plus there's volleyball, softball, cross country, golf, tennis and every local sport during the other seasons for the Jefferson City schools and numerous area schools.
Don't forget our year-round coverage of Lincoln University and University of Missouri athletics, and the wire stories we run of college and professional sports as well.
Yes, there's the option of watching local television for sports coverage - which is nice - but that's snippets put together to fit in a small window of air time.
Here's a recommendation: watch the nightly sports cast to get an appetizer of coverage and get more specific information via the News Tribune online or in print.
This area is fortunate to have this much media coverage of local sports, considering many newspapers have considerably short-staffed newsrooms and others don't have the same TV options.
Think about what would be missing in this community if there wasn't any coverage at all.
Tell your neighbor to buy a newspaper. Tell your family members to buy a newspaper. Purchase ads to run in that newspaper.
Thank you for supporting local journalism. Help us convince others to do the same.
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