A letter to the editor last week questioned the EOs practice of charging for access to our online articles, whether they are written by our staff or by other news organizations such as Associated Press or Oregon Public Broadcasting.

In the early days of the Internet, nearly all newspapers put their content online and offered it free of charge despite the fact that creating and maintaining complex newspaper websites and archives is an expensive proposition.

Over the last few years, newspaper companies across the country have come to realize that advertising revenue alone is not enough to make up for the significant costs involved with developing and maintaining websites. Many have decided to charge for online access.

The East Oregonian was one of the early adopters of this business practice. For our print subscribers, full online access is free.

Those who dont subscribe to the EO are able to view our headlines, the community calendar, obituaries, weather, all advertising, videos, audio and slideshows without logging in. These are free to all as is breaking news that alerts the public to emergency situations.

Very little content in our newspaper and on our website comes to us free. Our newsroom staff of 14 reporters and editors cover a large geographical area, including two counties, two cities and a number of small towns. We pay Associated Press a weekly fee to use their content.

We have a reciprocal relationship with our sister EOPubCo newspapers, Oregon Public Broadcasting and other Oregon newspapers, in which we occasionally use their stories and editorials, and they may use ours.

For just a dollar a day or $5 for seven days, those who dont subscribe to the EO can have full access to our website and archives, going back over a decade. An annual Internet-only subscription averages out to just 46 cents per day. Our content is accessible via computers, tablets and mobile devices such as smartphones.

For us, the bottom line is that our content has value. We believe that asking readers to pay a small amount for this content is a fair practice. This revenue allows us to report the news from our Eastern Oregon communities, as we have done for the past 137 years.