The Los Angeles Times has a limited-time offer for unlimited digital access across web, tablet, and mobile, for just $1 for 4 weeks. After that, you’re billed $4 per week, billed every 4 weeks ($16 a month), and you can cancel anytime. As a millennial, the thought of paying for news was foreign to me. Even though I grew up in the era of print newspapers and magazines, when the internet arrived, it seemed ridiculous to pay for news when it was abundantly available for free everywhere!
Flash forward to 2020: a pandemic is sweeping the globe, our president is telling us to consume bleach, the economy’s shit, and natural disasters are wreaking havoc all over the world. Everything’s on fire, basically. Unfortunately, these conditions have made fake news ripe for consuming and spreading, especially on platforms like Facebook and YouTube. It became increasingly hard for me to find accurate information, and I got tired of hitting paywalls on the sources I DID trust, so I decided to put my money where my mouth is and subscribe to the L.A. Times, a paper I’ve grown up with my entire life, as someone born and raised in Los Angeles, and it feels like home.
After spending a few weeks playing around with the app, I think I have a good grasp on the functionality and value it delivers. So here’s a breakdown of the features, some commentary on what I loved most, as well as feedback (from the perspective of someone in media who works on apps) on what would add even more value to subscribers. For those who want to know, I’m using a Samsung Galaxy S7 edge and I’m running Android 8.0.0 and Samsung Experience version 9.0.
Overview
The app is broken up into four major navigational sections:
- Homepage Feed
- eNewspaper (a digitized version of the print newspaper)
- Media (a collection of videos and podcasts)
- My library (saved and recently viewed articles)
Homepage Feed
The homepage feed includes a collection of top news however, the criteria for what is considered “top news” is unclear to me. I’m assuming it’s their most viewed or most engaged with stories of the day? Either way, most of the reading I do is directly from that homepage feed so those stories do tend to be the most relevant and engaging reporting available at the current moment.
eNewspaper
This sounds like exactly what it is, an eNewspaper! But this is more than a scanned version of the print paper, it’s completely clickable and customizable to each reader’s preferences. This format allows you to flip the pages of the paper which gives you a different scrolling experience that’s equivalent to sitting back and flipping through the newspaper. I’m still old enough to remember the joys of getting lost in the paper. Admiring the beautiful photography, discovering the buried stories, jumping from story to unrelated story. Except in this experience, when you click on a story it brings up an easy-to read version of the story that allows you to change the language, adjust the font size, and highlight text to copy, eliminating the need to pinch to zoom as you squint to read the writing.
The value and experience is further enhanced with the addition of games and comics. Games include Sudoku, solitaire, and word games, but the shining jewel in this crown is the daily crossword. Oh, how I miss filling out the daily crossword in the print paper! I never got great at doing crosswords but I loved trying. This version has everything you need for a good time, including customizable clues, the ability to play with friends, error check, and a deep archive to play with! The comics are cool because you can read them in the newspaper format, or click on them for an easy-to-read hi-res version. Hands down, the enewspaper is one of the most unique and best parts of the L.A. Times app.
There’s also a cool archives feature that dates back 130+ years and includes other newspapers. Unfortunately, it seems like you have to have a separate subscription to access this section. It’s too bad because making this a part of the subscription would definitely add value and attract a broader range of potential subscribers such as teachers, historians, researchers, and other individuals interested in news archives. I’ve contacted the L.A. Times directly to ask about this since it’s unclear if the lack of access is due to a bug or really requires another subscription.
Media
This is the section I’ve probably spent the least amount of time in. Not because the L.A. Times doesn’t make good video/audio content, but because I tend to consume that type of content at other times and on other platforms. If I’m opening up the L.A. Times app, it’s because I’m in the mood to read, not watch/listen to content. And when someone DOES share L.A. Times video on social media, they’re YouTube links, so I go consume the content there. Even the videos in the app appear to be YouTube embeds.
Same with the podcasts, I was a huge Dirty John fan, but I didn’t listen to this podcast on the L.A. Times app because it’s on Spotify, which is my go-to subscription for all things music and podcasts. It’s highly unlikely I would listen to a podcast from within the L.A. Times app unless it was EXCLUSIVE to the app. But I know that, in today’s media landscape, you have to spread your content across all monetizable platforms to get as much revenue out of it, so I get it.