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Mountain View Voice to remain online-only indefinitely

Original post made on May 29, 2020

The Mountain View Voice will not be resuming its print edition and plans to focus exclusively on online local news coverage and its daily emailed news digest, Express, Embarcadero Media President Bill Johnson announced today.

Read the full story here Web Link posted Friday, May 29, 2020, 11:34 AM

Comments (10)

Posted by Anthony
a resident of Blossom Valley
on May 29, 2020 at 12:13 pm

My bird will miss the paper version. Fit his cage perfectly.


Posted by Darin
a resident of Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on May 29, 2020 at 2:18 pm

Will you keep the online edition behind a paywall? You've throttled free access to less than 2 articles per week. It isn't worth subscribing to the daily emails if I'm limited to only 7 actual articles per month.


Posted by Bill Johnson
a resident of Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on May 29, 2020 at 2:42 pm

@Darin

Our meter allows you to view 7 different stories during the month free of charge. The whole point of the meter is to make readers aware of how much they use and value our reporting and to then realize the importance of subscribing if they want to sustain a source of local news coverage. Your subscription gives you unlimited access to everything on the Voice website and our websites in Palo Alto and Menlo Park. And subscriptions are the only way we are able to continue our work.


Posted by Joan Brodovsky
a resident of Sylvan Park
on May 29, 2020 at 3:01 pm

This is terrible news. I don't really want to see The Voice every day, and I don't like it on line. I like to sit down, take my time, read the front page, hear the paper crinkle when I turn to the inside pages, tear out pieces I want to look at later, and finally put it in the recycle bin.
Such curmudgeony feedback! I am glad you are still there, still publishing, and forcing us to see the failings of our MV government, as well as its strengths.


Posted by The Big Picture
a resident of Old Mountain View
on May 29, 2020 at 5:56 pm

Since you are going to online only, I hope you can figure out how to include big, zoomable pictures in your stories. You usually include illustrations and photographs so small that important details are lost among the pixels.

And don't blame your sources like you have in the past. Demand higher resolution from your sources! You would not skip every other word in a paragraph would you? Well, by using small pictures you are essentially doing the same by losing vital information.

If you go online only, start publishing like it is 2020 instead of 1999!


Posted by Bill Johnson
a resident of Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on May 29, 2020 at 6:04 pm

@The Big Picture,

You're right, our treatment of photos online hasn't been up to online publishing standards. We've been developing a solution to this over the last several months. Just last week we launched a new design for our stories online that allow for images to not only be presented in higher resolution but also much larger. Over the weeks ahead, as our editors learn how to best take advantage of the new photo display options available, you should see dramatic improvement.


Posted by Pulitzer
a resident of Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on May 29, 2020 at 8:20 pm

I remember, how with great fanfare, Bill Johnson announced that they were removing the paywall during the pandemic. Now it looks like, without any announcement, they have reinstated it.

And since they are getting rid of the print addition they can no longer ask for donations under the name of " we are losing ad revenue and need your donations to go on"

Darin- do you actually find more than 7 stories a month you want to read? BTW, originally we got 30 stories a month, now we are down to 7. And we apparently are still not donating enough


Posted by A.Nonymous
a resident of Willowgate
on May 29, 2020 at 9:43 pm

Since I paid $60/year for the hard copy to be mailed to me, It does not seem like an online-only subscription should cost as much.


Posted by Covid-Kid
a resident of Monta Loma
on May 30, 2020 at 7:43 am

There are other MV news options out there.

Web Link

Web Link

Web Link


Posted by @Covid-Kid
a resident of Shoreline West
on May 30, 2020 at 6:02 pm

Those news sources aren't nearly as comprehensive as the Voice. The third one has posted a total of 6 stories since the shelter in place began. The others have more stories but most have a tenuous relationship to MV.


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