Karen Florin: The cost of copying and pasting The Day's content
Feb. 11—We published a marvelous story today about a surgery that enables 21-year-old Arianna Howard of Pawcatuck to stand on her feet for the first time.
We're taking you behind the scenes of this story because we want you to see the care and effort we put into our work, and to emphasize how important it is that our readers pay for our content.
We've noticed some people have been copying and pasting entire articles from The Day into their social media feeds and otherwise attempting to get around our paywall. Not only is that an infringement of copyright law, it's stealing our content and harming our independent, local news company.
We'd love you to share links to our stories, so that others have the opportunity to subscribe and read pieces such as this. We just ask that you don't copy and paste entire stories into your social media feeds.
About that special Sunday story.
"Ari" Howard has spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy with a mild intellectual disability. She also has one of the most winning smiles we've ever seen and a caretaker whose devotion is miraculous.
Staff Writer Kimberly Drelich and photojournalist Sarah Gordon have followed Howard's journey since March 2022, when we published an article, photos and video about Howard's lifelong best friend, Taylor Bargnesi, becoming Howard's guardian and caretaker.
Our journalists took the time to win the trust of these special women for that first story, meeting with them multiple times at their apartment and even covering their outing to a nail salon so they could capture them in another setting.
For today's story, Drelich went to Yale New Haven Hospital to interview Dr. David Frumberg, an orthopedic surgeon at Yale New Haven Hospital. We urge you to read how Frumberg is adapting a surgery performed primarily on children to give adults new opportunities at independence. Frumberg sat with Howard for the interview, and Drelich captured a touching video that's too good to miss.
Drelich and Gordon also accompanied Howard and her bestie Bargnesi to a physical therapy session, and you'll see marvelous photos of them and therapist Susan Steady.
Our staff consistently turns out Sunday stories of this caliber, and we provide excellent daily news coverage 365 days a year. When people complain they can't read our stories online without subscribing, we remind them that we need them to pay for our content in order to sustain our business.
Our print subscribers have helped us keep the ship afloat since 1881, but we're increasingly reliant on digital subscriptions to keep the lights on and to keep shining the light on local government, people, businesses, crime, arts and entertainment, sports and more.
Helping us out helps others in the community. Not only do we tell the stories that need to be told, but our company also gives a portion of our small annual profit to local charities. By doing so, we continue to honor the will of publisher Theodore Bodenwein, which set up the company as a split-interest trust and ensured The Day remains independent.
Some people have called me out as The Day's "cheerleader" in the comment section, and I'm guilty as charged.
We're worth it.
This is the opinion of Karen Florin, engagement editor. Reach her at k.florin@theday.com and (860) 701-4217.
