The New York Times’s metered paywall has been in effect since March 28, and reactions to the plan have varied from relief to rage. (Our favorite take had to be The Onion headine, “NYTimes.com’s Plan To Charge People Money For Consuming Goods, Services Called Bold Business Move.”)
As it happens, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism will be hosting a panel with Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and president Janet Robinson on this very topic on Tuesday evening; the event, moderated by Dean of Academic Affairs Bill Grueskin will be webcast at 7 p.m. eastern, and you can watch it live here.
But in the meantime, what are your thoughts on the paywall, now that it’s been up for a week? Has it changed your reading habits at all? If you weren’t a subscriber already, have you had to pull out your credit card yet? And if you haven’t yet, do you plan to?
My Mother is an International Herald Tribune subscriber so technically I can get free access that way. But so far I haven't needed. I read a lot of Times content through RSS and even when I click through things on the NYT page, while I quickly pass the 20 article limit, I just copy the link of the article in to my browser and then access stories as if there were a link, so in that way the paywall is basically nonexistent. I feel like the only people who will end up paying are those who really feel they have the means to (ie not university students like me), people for whom Ipad access is really important ( and I think the Ipad is overhyped) and technophobes who believe the paywall is much stricter than it is, and don't realize how easy it is to circumvent. It is harder to circumvent sites like Megavideo than the NYT paywall
#1 Posted by newsjunkie247, CJR on Tue 5 Apr 2011 at 01:19 PM
I think the paywall is a big mistake and have significantly lowered my activity on NY Times. I gave my reasons why here: http://www.digitaltonto.com/2011/5-reasons-the-new-york-times-paywall-will-fail-and-why-it%E2%80%99s-really-dumb/
Another thing that I object to is that the paywall is being masqueraded as a moral issue in that it supports "quality" journalism. Who promotes quality journalism more, the NY Times who lay off journalists or the digital outlets that are hiring them in droves?
As I wrote in another article, "There is no worse betrayal to quality journalism than running a media business poorly."
You can read that one here: http://www.digitaltonto.com/2011/mass-media-vs-blogs-what-makes-quality-content/
#2 Posted by Greg Satell, CJR on Tue 5 Apr 2011 at 01:37 PM
I've always loved reading the Times, but have, for all but the stories that are of extreme interest to me, stopped reading it. I wonder if the paywall will marginalize the Times for many online readers and thus reduce its influence.
#3 Posted by Patricia, CJR on Wed 6 Apr 2011 at 02:58 PM
Has not changed one bit. I am a print subscriber ( I read five newspapers at home, physically, every morning) so I have access to the website and use it! I believe in the necessity of paying people for their art and talent and sweat.
#4 Posted by Mike Robbins, CJR on Wed 6 Apr 2011 at 03:59 PM
There's no question...the paywall has cut down on my daily scanning of news stories...from full-blown articles...to short news items.
I am also revising my NYT rss list...perhaps even removing Media Decoder, Economix, etc.
While I am not averse to a paywall, I read the actual hard copy 4 days a week.
Because of poor eyesight, I prefer the newspaper newspaper.
Finally, I am no longer linking my news blog followers...
...http://thehypervigilantobserver.blogspot.com/
to the NYT website.
Granted NOT a big loss for the NYT... usuallywith only about 50-75 uniques daily...but most come from outside the USA since the blog covers Mexico/Cuba/South/Central America/Eastern Europe economics, politics, etc.
But in just 3 days in January, the blog got over 11,000 unique visitors.
Not likely to send them to the NYTs now!
#5 Posted by lex wadelski, CJR on Wed 6 Apr 2011 at 04:39 PM
I succumbed and bought the subscription since I read the online NYT habitually. I think they should remove all the annoying ads for paid subscribers, at least.
I think it's pretty pricey after reading for free for years, but compared to other costs of living, it's not the worst thing in the world.
#6 Posted by Lillian Gahagan, CJR on Thu 7 Apr 2011 at 07:02 AM
I haven't read a single article since the paywall went into effect. I still visit the site several times a day, but I'm just scanning the front page for topics. If I find anything interesting, I'll go tho NPR or the Washington Post, Guardian, BBC, et al... for coverage. I could easily circumvent their paywall, but there's no need. I have absolutely no problem with paying for access (in fact, it's an arrangement I prefer) but I think the price they've come up with is too expensive. In the public forum, Sulzberger was quoted as saying that they modeled their pricing partly on "how telecom companies price and structure their bundles of access" which is precisely the problem (a lot of us have cut back on those services as well). At least the telecoms are bundling a lot of different media sources together; the NYT wants to charge an amount that would effectively crowd out other internet sources rather quickly. After all, if I pay NYT $15, then ESPN $15, then MSNBC $15.... I'm going to be limited to a small number of pay services. At $5 a month, it becomes more reasonable. Plus, I'm going to pay a significant amount of money and still have to deal with any number of annoying expanding ads? I would love to partner with NYT but they're asking too much.
#7 Posted by Brooklyn Ted, CJR on Thu 7 Apr 2011 at 08:33 PM
I got an email from NYT saying that as a loyal NYTimes.com reader (since The Beginning) was being offered free access for the rest of 2011. Courtesy of Lincoln, I believe. I accepted the offer. Who wouldn't. Therefore, haven't noticed the paywall in any of the platforms I access the NYT -- web, mobile, iPad.
#8 Posted by Wendy D, CJR on Fri 8 Apr 2011 at 04:18 PM
I can't say I miss it, and it may be doing the world some good, given that I've become rather suspicious of the NYT's analytical abilities these days.
This started for me with their Wikileak coverage of a longish memo on North Korea's alleged long-range missiles that I'd happened to read in full before seeing the NYT coverage. The memo could be summarized as saying, our diplomats and intelligence service claimed that Ponyang had shipped working intermediate-range missiles to Iran; the Russians (with good knowledge of the systems on which North Korea's missiles were based) dismissed this and asked for our evidence; we couldn't come up with anything. The NYT's take was that Iraq had working missiles.
The more stories I read in the NYT about which I have in-depth knowledge, the more errors like this I say. And I'm not the only one; you can look on this site or on others.
Now, I don't know how common or rare this is, but even if it is, and the NYT is not publishing corrections, how can I trust it?
<cjs@cynic.net>
(And hey, cjr folks, how about a preview option on posts? These tiny little text boxes are very hard to proofread.)
#9 Posted by Curt Sampson, CJR on Tue 12 Apr 2011 at 01:08 PM
I thought about subscribing--only, before the paywall, the iphone app crashed most of the time for me, so I was reluctant to pay for something and then not be able to access it. I thought I would miss it--I've been reading it online since college, so a bit over ten years--and instead I just read other news sources.
Which really means--I'm reading the news from a much more diverse sample now, and I'm happy about that.
#10 Posted by shannon, CJR on Thu 14 Apr 2011 at 12:06 AM