Linking to Local News Articles

This week I was trying to link to two stories in two local papers that talk about trail running, and in both instances the numbers of popups and paywalls I was presented with prohibited me from even reading the full article. And further if these stories are behind paywalls, what’s the point of sharing them here, I concluded. Anyway, I am linking them anyway:

• The Seattle Times posted a story about Cougar Mountain and how that park was saved through the efforts and donations of a trail race series.
• The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about the historic DipSea race and how a teenager might win it.

Traditional news papers have to make money through subscriptions, I get that, but this is such a user hostile experience and if an article is on the open web there should be a way to access the content for folks NOT living in the region without having to become a subscriber. I don’t have the answer but this, what is increasingly happening on news sites ain’t it. No wonder everyone flocks to social media platforms, as gross as their data mining exploitations are. And yes, linking to posts on social media is equally dumb and inaccessible if you don’t already have an account.