The Indianapolis Star

Been a subscriber for years. Paper content is ok, but have fought with them over delivery issues for several years late or missing deliveries. I put a stop on when going on vacations and come home to a pile of papers on my porch, a welcome sign for criminals. On top of that they make it very difficult to quit or change your subscription. Can’t do anything online and you are on hold forever when you call.

Great paper. If only they could deliver
Not worth the headache of having to call every other week because of no delivery
Spoke to managers several times. But non delivery goes on and on. You would think with declining sales someone would care enough to straighten out the problem. How hard can it be. Evidently pretty hard

I am a print and digital subscriber. This morning I tried reading the Star digitally; however, whenever I clicked on an article to read it, I was presented with a ‘Toys R Us’ ad instead. This happened over and over. So I searched on their site for a way to contact someone to notify them of my problem. I was unable to make a connection with anyone. Then I called the customer service number. I listened to the same plug for new subscribers and how important they are… for over 12 minutes! I finally gave up. It’s no wonder newspapers are failing. Very frustrating.

Newspapers are a dying breed, and I genuinely wonder if we’ll have printed papers or magazines in ten years. The Indy Star content has slimmed down over the years, but the same could be said of any publication — most are now turning to all digital content.
I love the Indy Star for its incredibly talented writers. Matthew Tully tugs at the heart strings with his in-​depth feature articles on social issues. David Woods and Zak Keefer keep me in the loop on sporting news (follow them on Twitter). Since Bob Kravitz moved on to WTHR, Gregg Doyel has done a great job covering the Colts (read his article about Peyton Manning’s impact on Indy beyond football). Foodies can check out Liz Biro for the hot new business openings around town, or Amy Haneline for drink recommendations. Can’t forget Leslie Bailey and her adventures!
My bone to pick is the pesky «this is your last article!» notifications — most times, I have to answer survey questions to access content or I’m denied altogether because I’ve reached my final article… though that doesn’t seem to last longer than a day.

I do have an update for the Indianapolis Star. I finally after 2 months did get a full refund of $ 113.92. I was called several weeks after the refund asking me why I quit the paper and would I be interested in trying it again as they said they know that have been experiencing lots of problems and would give me discount price. The catch was I had to supply a credit card number… YIKES after what I went through… NO WAY.
I’m thankful I did get my refund.

Complete crooks! If I could give this business zero stars, I would. I was solicited at a grocery store for a trial subscription and decided to check it out. I got a total of one newspaper but was charged for three months of newspapers. When I called to request a refund for a product I didn’t receive, I was told that my request was denied by the accounting department, whom I wasn’t allowed to even speak with. Now, I’m disputing the charges with my credit card company and filing complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the Attorney General’s office. What a waste of time and money and a horribly dishonest company!

Remember that one star is tantamount to zero. I have been a Star subscriber for over 40 years. I’ve seen the size and quality diminished continuously. Were it not for local sports coverage and the laughable political (ob)scene, it would be useless. But, I write to rate the quality of the (dis)service. Though I call to report every delivery omission, they simply cannot get the delivery of my subscriptions correct. 3 months ago we added a special offer EXTREME COUPONING subscription sponsored by the Star to our existing one (an interesting but bad idea). As they are different rates, I am told that they can’t be consolidated. Though the customer service reps all repeat the same mantra: ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know why this has happened but I’ll get it fixed. I’m going to send a message to the carrier and escalate this by also sending a message to the home delivery manager’. REALLY, I have heard these exact words no less than 6 times in 3 months. As I have no confidence that the Star is capable of getting it right, I cancelled my original subscription. I can’t cancel the other until after 6 months or I’ll be levied a surcharge. Rest assured that this subscription will last not a day longer than that to which I originally committed.

After falling for one of the «special» prices at a community event, I was looking forward to get a print subscription again. More than A week after I was informed that my subscription «started» there still has not been a delivery. After 4 calls and a similar number of web complaints, I get a call from a regional manager telling me that they don’t have a carrier in the area and they will be more than happy to give me a mail subscription at a higher price. What a waste of my time. It’s no wonder there are declining subscriber rates at this paper… Never again will I subscribe.

Here we go with another rate increase. The Tuesday edition is so thin they might as well cancel publishing it and keep the rate down. Customer service is poor. Delivery time and paper placement is inconsistent. Gary Varvel’s cartoons are the only real feature. Reporting is geared toward a liberal slant. Tully and Smith are always whining about something. Good bye Indy Star. After 39 years, it is time to part.

I still remember with great affection my teenaged years when I served as a newspaper carrier for what was then The Indianapolis News, an evening edition and sister to the more traditional morning paper, The Indianapolis Star.
I’m probably over-​sentimental, but I’ve even still got the news clipping from when I was named «Carrier of the Week» and I still remember a particular trip I won to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
In other words, like many folks I’ve always had a tremendous affection for my hometown newspaper and even during many of my financially lean years I’ve been a regular reader and/​or subscriber.
I recently ended my subscription to The Indianapolis Star, the end of a years long relationship that had become strained over the years due to a decline in the quality of writing, a decreased devotion to truly covering Indianapolis as a community, and customer service that only reinforces that The Indianapolis Star has come to too closely resemble a corporate rag.
As a film writer myself, I can easily admit that the decline for me started when The Indianapolis Star started syndicating out its arts coverage and its local coverage became sketchy at best. While I’d be hard-​pressed to say that The Star’s arts coverage was ever consistently brilliant, it was local and I really appreciated it. As one of the largest cities in the nation, it’s unfathomable to me that The Indianapolis Star has almost non-​existent local arts coverage.
While the Sports coverage locally is better, even in that area The Star’s most notable sports journalist is a transplant who has simply worked out well and truly integrated himself into the community.
The Indianapolis Star is no longer the kind of newspaper that makes you feel like it’s part of the community, no matter how much they contribute through «Season of Sharing» and no matter that they’ve chosen to relocate into the downtown mall. The newspaper recently «expanded,» an expansion that really was just an excuse to incorporate more corporate drivel from USA Today into their local coverage and to make the newspaper look even more like the Gannett flagship paper.
It’s nearly impossible to read The Indianapolis Star without finding grammatical errors, misspellings, typos, and other mistakes that were almost non-​existent in the days when actual human beings put the newspaper together rather than allowing automation to take over and save a few bucks.
While I’d tried to hang on, mostly out of a sense of loyalty, this past Winter season affirmed my decision to stop my subscription for three very clear reasons — 1) A price increase that was justified by Gannett due to the «expansion» and the increased «online content» yet offered no local expansion and online content that is far from user friendly, 2) Absolutely horrid delivery during what was admittedly a rougher than usual Winter in Indianapolis yet delivery that resulted in no newspaper days at a time, and 3) Disappointing customer service that made no effort to retain me when I called to express my dismay with a fairly substantial price increase. Within a month of my dropping my subscription, I was getting offers to start it up again at a rate even lower than what I’d requested.
I’m guessing the word «retention» is not in Gannett’s vocabulary.
This is not to say that The Indianapolis Star is devoid of quality writers. Indeed, The Indianapolis Star does have some quality writers yet I can’t help but feel it’s hindered by being part of a larger corporation that hasn’t figured out how to balance being a true community newspaper while also being a fiscally responsible corporate entity.
It is possible. This isn’t how you do it.

Indy Star just changed their online format and it is terrible. Too much going on and requires too much clicking and searching to find what you’re looking for. Basically, it is not user friendly whatsoever. Thank Satan I don’t pay for the service.

I have been trying for the past four months to resolve an issue with the Star double charging me every month for digital access. Their customer service is the worst ever– making you jump through hoops to prove your point when they are the ones who made an accounting or administrative error. The condescending, pre-​scripted chirpy comments are nauseating and infuriating. I have cancelled my digital subscription and will not be surprised if my credit card is still charged again next month. Since they are the only game in town, they don’t have to care and so they don’t. No wonder they’re failing.

Worst customer service ever!!! After accidentally canceling my subscription due to their accounting error they actually expected me to pay a higher subscription rate to restart my paper delivery! Two solid weeks of phone calls with no resolution! I’ve been without my daily paper for almost two weeks now! As far as I’m concerned they can take their paper and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine!

They just raised the single copy price of the daily edition to $ 1.00. Geez, talk about putting a nail in your own coffin.
They reduced the size, then they increased the price. It wasn’t that long ago that it was only $.50 for a single copy.
I stopped subscribing via home-​delivery years ago when home delivery got too unreliable. And when it was delivered, the paper was placed too far from my door, making me get dressed to go get it.
Their local reporting isn’t all that good to begin with. Many times, I’ve read articles by their local reporters, and it always seems like they leave out some pertinent facts, or leave obvious questions unanswered.
Right now, I get it mainly for: a) comics, b) Gary Varvel’s editorial cartoons, c) the obituaries*, d) ads, e) coupons, f) the Sudoku puzzle.
*Am I giving away my age?

it’s yesterday’s news

This is another chain paper owned by an out-​of-​state company and therefore local coverage leaves a lot to be desired. The online edition consistently has a lot of errors (wrong locations, names, etc.) The Star I grew up with (and even shortly after it was sold about 9 years ago) was staffed mainly by native locals who worked there for 20 – 30 or more years. Now a days a lot of its employees are, so to speak, using our city as a stopoff from Little Rock to Chicago. The state high school basketball finals this year, played in Indy granted had no local teams, but this paper’s editors chose to place stories on page 9 of the sports section. Lame. And if you’re not a big-​league pro or college sports team, don’t expect to see a Star reporter covering a game after opening night. But at least as a quick-​pay subscriber I got two free tickets to the Indy 500 pole day.

The Indianapolis Star does not cover Indianapolis, or Indiana very well. Every once in a while they’ll break a government-​employee-​doing-​something-​not-​good story and they do a «touching» piece on a local celebrity, but thre is hardly any worthwhile news that is actually new. The paper takes a very soft stance on anything. Not at all liberal, but not overtly conservative, their lack of being a true light shining beacon on what is being done to correct our city’s problems is so evident by the fact that I hear nothing, no updates at all about unsolved crimes, what government bills are going to affect me both locally and nationally, and other stuff I would want to know
Instead the Star keeps us ignorantly and partly informed of every day issues that are not newsworthy. I actually get all my news from other sources, mainly Internet sources. Their national news coverage is nonexistent, just AP reports that I read two days ago on other websites.
Their «investigative» pieces are almost all narrative with no hard one on one interviews nor quotes from a hardcore reporter giving a half-​truth interviewee the third degree. I want more than the facts, I want those facts to lead to possible conclusion (s) and the newspaper to allege crimes and wrong doings of all businesses, not just government. The biggest drug dealer in the city gets let off the hook and their press releases are basically published with no analysis or critique. I’ve never heard of Eli Lilly having an air quality issue, or being cited for an environmental incident. Yet Indianapolis’ air quality is really bad on that southwest side, hmmm. Do you think its fair that IPL takes all the blame? Lilly’s factories are huge and why, after IDEM officials have gone home for the night, do factory smokestacks all over this state start billowing out tons of crap into the night sky? Why can’t you see the stars in the city anymore? What happened to all the people who can’t afford to live in their neighborhoods because of gentrification and the city forcing them to live in worse areas? Why are IPS schools so full of people who feel «it’s not my job» and it IS their job? (And I’m not referring to teachers!) These are questions I expect my newspaper to answer.
Oh, and the post about customer service. Yeah, they’re great if you want to keep paying them. But let’s say you keep getting a paper missed regularly or want to cancel your subscription, they are far from helpful.

Eh, I don’t think the Indy Star is all that bad. I subscribe to the Thursday and Sunday editions, but that’s mostly for the ads, coupons and crosswords. I also enjoy reading Dana Hunsinger’s workplace columns.
The customer service is decent — nothing striking but nothing terrible either. Although if you receive an email to them, and respond with a request, they will not fulfill your request and instead tell you to go fill out a form on their website — that’s a little ridiculous if you ask me. Other than that, I’m pretty satisfied with my subscription.
It is pretty odd that they do a Sunday Star Early Edition rather than just calling it the Saturday paper. Also, if you are looking for local news you might want to consider subscribing to one of the Star’s enewsletters. They’re free, and you’ll get them twice a day, so it’s a pretty nice way to stay on top of local news.

I’ve traveled all over the US and aside from the paper in Philly the Star might be the worst news paper in the country.
There is really nothing good about it, evidenced by the fact that on Sunday the actual paper is a good ¼ the size of the ads. And what is with that Sunday early edition stuff? Publish a normal Saturday paper please.
The paper is usually uninformed, unless you’re looking for Colts coverage, forget it. The puzzles aren’t even hard… whats that about?