Put another way: Even the people that write for the Star & Sickle don't find it worth paying for.
LOL That's the first thing that came to mind.
>> Even the people that write for the Star & Sickle don't find it worth paying for. <<
Not only that, they don't find it worth 25 cents. LOL
And that is today, when 25 cents is almost throw away change. (What can you actually buy for 25 cents? Maybe a gum ball.)
"Even the people that write for the Star & Sickle don't find it worth paying for."
I am a part-time freelance writer. Generally you get a free copy of a publication in which something you wrote appears. When a publication refuses to do this, I usually find another publication to write for, unless that publication is paying a dollar a word or so (then I can afford to buy a copy of the publication).
I can see where the Star reporters could get peeved about having a traditional perk removed from them. That clip can be an important part of a portfolio. (I recently got a job writing a weekly column based on clips that had appeared in Boy's Life.) So having the newspaper management cheap out on them, and making them pay even a nominal fee cannot be good for morale
Generally it isn't the well paying magazines that stiff me author's copies, it is the ones paying the lowest rates or for whom I am writing free because some organization to which I belong has asked me to.