Not Fade Away
Letter From the Editor - New York Times
Indeed, a milestone in its slide towards irrelevance.
Not that I really know what newspapers should be doing in this brave new world. People are losing interest in print periodicals at an alarming rate now that information is available through the internet...but we'll also take our information from whatever source makes it the most accessible. Papers need to be widely read to maintain their influence, but they also need a solid source of revenue.
Fair enough. But those of us who cannot afford this service will not get to read Krugman, Herbert, Kristof, Dowd or Rich (or the dopes who are unaccountably given space alongside them). They're the real voice of the paper, the reason we willingly endure the lethal ineptitude of the news pages. We'll suffer for it.
So will they. So will the Times. This is not a step in the right direction.
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If and when Krugman or Dowd write a must-read, the blogdex link will take you to some cut and paste job, or a paper that syndicates either, or even the International Herald Tribune (the best source for free reading of archived NYT columns and articles.)
But here's why I think this is going to work, as much as I hate it. The majority of their traffic comes for breaking news, not Maureen Dowd. If they charged for breaking news they'd lose all their ground to MSNBC and the Washington Post. But those of us who like Dowd, and the Magazine on Saturday night, etc, are the most likely to pay $50 a year (which is not that much) for the privilege.
Or, better yet, we might subscribe to the print edition and get the Web access for free.
I hate that they're doing it. It drive me nuts. But evrything I know about Web traffic tells me it's going to work out quite well.
i agree. $50/year isn't that much, what is that, 7 less beers a year? are you willing to forgo 7 beers over the course of a year to be able to make fun of the self righteousness of ms. dowd?
I'm skeptical. As much as they want to protect and profit from their unique and valuable content, it only remains unique and valuable as long as people are aware of it, as long as it has a place in our consciousness.
We talk about Krugman's latest columns all the time. Dowd's too. (Not so much Herbert, who does important work but doesn't vary his style or content enough to demand regular attention.) Once we have to pay, the talk will cease. Their ideas will go unremarked by most.
This is the dilemma of intellectual property of any kind: its value can only be demonstrated by making it freely available. As we try to create a society where most goods and services are so wholly ephemeral, this may be the biggest problem we're going to have to confront.
People will pay for it (I second what Marc posted - give up a few brews and all this - plus the NYT archive - a key feature as I don't think they could pull this off if they were just placing their columnists behind the 'pay wall' - can be yours for 365 days. What a deal!). Folks were talking about Times op-ed articles long before there was a NYTimes.com (remember those days?) Folks were aware of the Times' content then and the stuff did get out there - clipping and snail mailing, photocopying, etc.. It was part of the national discussion among the intellectual, the elites. What's different is that now more folks outside those 'castes' can take a gander as the content as well without subscribing to the newsprint edition or scouring the hinterlands for a vendor's copy.
The Times is obviously more accessible and its content more *easily* distributed by its consumers than its print-only days (and will only become more widespread as more folks get online) but with the magic of cut n' paste jobs on Web sites or in emails or through syndication, these columns will still find their audience, if in a more roundabout way. Unlike breaking news, which is valuable financially for several reasons to the eyes that see it as it hits, the columns won't begin to go stale the moment they hit the screen so there's no need to read ithem IMMEDIATELY unless you're a rabid want-to-be-the-first-to-respond type - most folks can catch up hours/days later with these items if need be with minimal deleterious effect. (There are exceptions - the WSJ occasionally publishes op-eds that do in fact break 'hard news' - but they are rare birds.)
Guaranteed: The talk won't cease, the columnists' ideas will go on being remarked by many (I'm fairly sure a good deal of folks who rabidly follow these folks will shell out the cash in any event) and it will be freely available (which isn't the same as $0 'free'), and in several cases actually sans fee, due to the several ways to 'cheat' in disseminating intellectual property on the Web. It's less consistent, but it will only intensify as more publications slide behind the pay wall.(Salon's articles still get out there for discussion, and I know they're not exactly signing up the subscribers at a quick pace - I never have - or in fact giving folks much reason to do so while the 'cheats' exist.)
-kbc
I think Salon has the influence it does (whatever that may be) in large part because it's always been accessible for "free" to whoever wants it. Then again, that's true of the Times, which built its reputation over a long period where it was only available in print and for a low price.
It seems to me that nothing good can come of a policy that will inevitably leave some people excluded from the dialogue, even as the dialogue continues. Many of us will pay, and others will find a way to weasel out of it. But many just won't read the things anymore, and the loss isn't just theirs, it's ours.
I'll probably pay at some point (as I paid for Salon). Not now, though.