Sample of N.Y. Times new policy: to read you have to pay

eoe--

A lot of authors/performers/creators have trouble with free access to copyright material on the Internet.


Suppose you worked out a fantastic cross stitch design with an elaborate Christmas tree for use as a pillow cover. Suppose you submitted it to a Stitchery magazine (Circulation 10,000) and they sent you a check for $150.

Then your design appears on the Internet for downloading by millions of people and you get......nada....

Fair?

I haven't followed the free downloading of copyright protected music, but this is the same idea.

A number of magazines offer only a few of their articles for free on the Internet--in part because the authors of the articles want to keep profit from republishing for themselves.

Whether it's "fair" or not, I don't know. But consider this:

The NY Times is a business. Just like all the other newspapers and media companies. The idea of selling subscriptions to the newspaper when you're giving it away for free on-line clearly makes no sense in the long run.

This sort of thing had to happen sooner or later: Newspapers are losing circulation across the country. Who in his right mind, except for old school fools like me, still pays to have a newspaper delivered every day?

Thing is, there's so much information available online, such a wealth of it - if you cant read Krugman, you'll read someone else <shrugs>. Theres enough intelligent voices out there.

In that sense I dont agree that the NYT's move necessarily makes sense even as a business consideration. Lots of people do still pay to have a newspaper delivered every day - and lots more still buy them at the kiosk occasionally. Why? Because we spend enough time behind the computer screen as it is already.

The luxury of reading where and how you want will always remain marketable - untill they invent the foldable, light-weight flexible laptop screen. Thats why e-books never took off either, despite elaborate software schemes that would allow you to make your own notes in the margins etc.

On the other hand, when I do buy a hard-copy newspaper, its most likely to be one that I know of positively from online. Vice versa, the more of its content a medium hides away into paid-service, the more it removes itself from the public dialogue, the public awareness - it loses relevancy. Rouses less interest - which makes less people buy it.

Fer sure its a precarious balance, but its not as straightforward as that "the idea of selling subscriptions when you're giving it away for free on-line clearly makes no sense". It does make sense, in its way; now, publishers have to measure and compare how much sense it makes compared to the alternative. I dont think the alternative of paid-content will necessarily pay off any better, barring specialised media for specific professions and the like.

You pay lots for a medical journal because the information is unique. But an op-ed writer? Opinions are a dime a dozen. Even Krugman's, in the end.

For me, its simple: if I cant read Krugman - even if I cant read the NYT, period - then I'll find my informed opinion elsewhere on the web. And whatever I find that I like best is also what I'll buy in hardcopy when I travel in its country of origin and want to do my reading in the train or out on some terrace.

I agree with most (all?) of what you say, nimh. I do subscribe to the NY Times for the reasons you list (I can read it on the bus, over breakfast, when I sit outdoors, in a coffee shop...). But from what I hear, younger folks don't see these advantage as compelling, and they don't subscribe. At least that's the case in the US...

I was happy enough to pay my $30.00 a year to get all of their articles that mentioned Italy and landscape architecture, as I might miss those even if I subscribed to the paper at home - which I used to when I lived in Los Angeles. As it is, you can't subscribe in this city I live in now; you can only buy the NYT at one market, and Starbucks.

On columnists being paid, if they are, which I somewhat doubt, by the new fees - are they not paid for their columns in the first place? They get some power from those columns, presumably, and potential for book sales, and for that, the more readers, I would guess, the merrier.

On in hand newspaper reading in general, I think d'artigan may be right that it has gone down with younger people in the US. Well.... ability to read seems to have gone down too - that is my impression - another whole subject.

Is Maureen Dowd Boycotting TimesSelect?
This ups my respect for Maureen Dowd even higher. ---BBB

Is Maureen Dowd Boycotting TimesSelect?
By E&P Staff
Published: October 05, 2005 11:30 AM ET
NEW YORK

Is Maureen Dowd boycotting the new pay-for-play TimesSelect plan at The New York Times? Despite promises from the newspaper that its high-profile columnists--now hidden behind a pay wall on the Web--would provide bonus content and services at the site, Dowd so far has offered nothing original, beyond her twice-weekly print column.

This stands in stark contrast to her colleagues, Frank Rich, Bob Herbert, Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, Paul Krugman, Nicholas Kristof, and John Tierney.

Others, for example, provide a list of "What I'm Reading." Special video interviews with many of them are available on their pages. Many have posted favorite Web sites, ranging from Juancole to Drudge. But nothing from Dowd, who is rumored to be against the pay plan, which severely limits online audience. Columnists once dominated the Web site's "most e-mailed" list, but no longer.

On his special TimesSelect columnist page, Friedman answers questions from readers on world affairs. (He says he's reading "Blink" and "The Greatest Game Ever Played." ) Tierney hosts a book club and will discuss a new selection each month. This month it's "Radical Evolution" by Joel Garreau. Kristof, as before, runs a very active forum, with reader feedback as well.

Brooks, meanwhile, offers a cornucopia: various multimedia and interviews, fresh material on social and cultural topics, taking questions from readers, a long list of favorite Web sites, which includes NRO and andrewsullivan. (He seems to be reading a Weekly Standard anthology and a classic Joe DiMaggio biography.)

Krugman has a "Money Talks" feature with readers' mail and full explanations on why he is reading what he's reading. Herbert has a "Herbert's Heroes" section, presently lauding Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese. Frank Rich also chats with readers and, by the way, he is reading Didion and Ishiguro and the John Crawford war book.

Even the paper's sport columnists provide many extras. But on the Dowd page: nothing but clips from her appearances on The Daily Show and Meet the Press, and previous pieces about her mother and her vacation in Cancun.
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E&P Staff ([email protected])

I'm not sure why that makes Dowd a better person than Krugman, Tierney et al, but I guess I'm not as exercised about this issue than others...

Personally, I'd rather be a columnist with readers than a chatty media personality with followers.

D'Artagnan- You took the words right out of my mouth. I am always amused, and often appalled, by the sense of entitlement that seems to be rife in our society. The New York Times is not a charity, it is a business. People are not automatically entitled to benefit from the fruits of another person's labor.

As someone said, if you want to read it badly enough, and can't pay the freight, you can read it in the Public Library.

This is the point exactly. I don't care what Krugman is reading, I read him for his informed opinions not for his book list. I think the Times policy is a bad one and in the long run will dimmish both the significance of their columnists and the influence of the newspaper.

i get free online full text access to NYT and a lot of other publications from a local public library...i'm not making this up; i may get in trouble with moderators for posting this, but here's the remainder of the column by Krugman that BBB couldn't access:



with this begins the passage you can read for free, and now here's the end of the article:



so it may be more productive to request libraries to allow remote access to ProQuest--which is where i accessed the article--than emailing protests to the Times. but even without remote access, a library with onsite access to a database will allow patrons to email articles to themselves...inconvenient, but an alternative to paying the times. finally, none of this matters a whit to people without PCs or internet access.

Yes, like Krugman's point about medical care, this is a tempest in a middle class teapot.

No hurricanes here in Northern Cali....yet I need a Xanax.

I guess I am in the middle; I feel the disservice is to the columnists and paper re the flow of opinion and the power of it.

but, as I've said twice now, I was already paying 30. a year for specific snippets based on some search system, and I don't resent that.

I guess if I resent it, it is re the subject matter, opinion. I am disappointed for me, as I am not going to do the $50.,
but am looking at it for the wider range of people with, yes, computers.

As far as just buying the newspaper, until this week, it hasn't been delivered in my whole region except to a store or possibly two per main town.

Our city library is rarely open. Funding, you know.

I have loved being able to get NYT online and appreciate the effort on their part, at least at some point, to set that up.
I didn't get email updates like theirs from any of my other places where I've registered online, although the Washington Post has an approximation of the nyt system. I also get it that they need to survive.

The Times has yet to figure out how to use the internet, witness Abuzz. The value here is eyeballs and influence. Rather than charging readers for access to the columnist, they should be selling banner ad space on their pages. For advertisers that should be high quality real-estate.

I can see that, backassward. My specific gripe though is re the opinions, to the extent I'm griped. But I have other opinions to read, at present, unless this thing multiplies.

BobLablob


Welcome to A2K, glad to find someone who lives in Lafayette. I once lived there many decades ago when it was a small country town. Love Lafayette. Used to attend it's little theater in the old barn when it was first called the Dramatures right up to the time I moved to New Mexico in 2002.

BBB

BBB
The Web Effect: New Tally Reveals True Newspaper Reach

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=60855&highlight=

THURSDAY's LETTERS: Mo (Dowd) Better Blues
By Editors & Publishers Staff
Published: October 06, 2005 11:00 AM ET
NEW YORK

Letters for Thursday. We reserve the right to shorten and edit. This column is shorter this week, due to Online Editor Jay Defoore's vacation trip. Send comments to [email protected]. Thank you.

***
If Maureen dowd is "boycotting" the Times Select ripoff, good for her!

John Kroeger
Sacramento CA
*
I am SO upset by not being able to have access to Ms. Dowd's column and have written the Times of my dismay. I am disabled and use my computer as my link to the world. Maureen Dowd is my all-time favorite. I look SO forward to reading her column and was infuriated that one day last week I was locked out of it because they made it a pay only to read it. You have to fork up money to read her ideas! I can't believe that the Times would do that. It reminds me of having to fork up a ton of bucks just so I can pray during high holidays. It seems just plain wrong! I hope they will reconsider and reverse their course! She is the only reason I read the Times because I have so much to read from other venues. Nonetheless reading her was one highlight of my day. This stinks!

Natalie Rosen
Framingham, MA 01702

*
I think that if Dowd is not participating in this Times Select gimmick, she is perfectly justified. Sulzberger and Keller have been blurring the line between advertising appeasment and editorial courage since boy Sulzberger has taken over. If Ms. Dowd has a contract to provide a certain amount of content, then she should feel obliged to fullfill that contract. If she is even close to being as upset as I am with NYTimes management, then she should hold back on any
freebies.

If Sulzberger and Keller feel as they do about charging selectively for talent and for getting mired into the reporting of the likes of Miller the Martyr and Jason Blair, perhaps they should move this ethical standard somewhere else. The NY Times is looking more and more like the Wall Street Journal, a totally different kind of news outlet, and I don't like it at all.

Ed Botsko
Delray Beach, FL

*
Some people have wondered why it took so long for Scooter Libby to give his permission to Judith Miller to testify about his being her
source. Perhaps the answer is a matter of simple math, being the
amount of time needed to make sure all the hard evidence was
thoroughly shredded.

Wiley Miller
Kennebunkport, Me.
*
Was Judith Miller's appearance on Lou Dobbs' CNN show an act? Just knowing what I have read about Miller--is she believing her own bull? Why is Dobbs so gullible? This is a clear case of powerful people in govt using someone(Miller) and she using them right back. Who fed her that false info on WMD? She lapped it up and asked for more. Oh and Judy, how about a little favor and out a CIA agent whose husband is hurting yours and our story?
You know George and Dick will love you even more.

J. Hickey
Long Beach NY

*
I have deselected my NYTimes subscription. I resent
the move to block content, charge, as well as subjecting us to
various commercial pitches.

Jonathan Dobrer
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E&P Staff ([email protected])

TimesSelect Draws Mixed Reviews from Columnists
TimesSelect Draws Mixed Reviews from Columnists
By Joe Strupp is a senior editor at E&P.
Published: October 19, 2005 10:20 AM ET
NEW YORK

One month after The New York Times launched TimesSelect, an online subscription service based largely on the paper's popular Op-Ed columnists, several of the writers whose work now appears behind a paid wall report dwindling audiences.

But while the columnists contacted by E&P lament the loss of readers, most show a willingness to at least try the approach in the name of helping the paper grow its online revenues.

TimesSelect

Launched Sept. 19

Cost: $49.95/year or $7.95/month

What that gets you: Access to the paper's eight Op-Ed columnists, as well as 14 other opinion-makers in news, sports, and business. The service also includes new features such as online video commentaries by the columnists and archive access of up to 100 articles per month.

Skeptical? Print subscribers are given free access. Others can sign up for a 14-day free trial period, but have to give their credit card info.

"I'm sad to lose an awful lot of readers, and a lot of readers in places like China and Pakistan who don't have credit cards or the ability to sign up," says Nicholas Kristof, a four-year Op-Ed columnist whose work appears twice weekly. "I want to be read, and this makes it much harder. But that is tempered by a concern that we come up with a business model to pay for my trips to Africa."

Thomas Friedman, another Op-Ed columnist who has a lot of foreign readership, admitted to being torn on the subject: "I want my newspaper to have a successful business platform. But the other side of me says that I have a lot of international readers in places like Egypt, where $50 could be their college tuition for a while."

Friedman stressed that reaching readers was among the most important aspects of the opinion pages, but added, "so is a good business model." He credited the paper with trying something new, noting, "we had to dive into the pool to see what was there."

Officials at the Times have thus far declined to say just how deep that pool is. But last month, Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president, digital operations for The New York Times Co., told E&P columnist Steve Outing that the paper's goal was to sign up hundreds of thousands of subscribers in the early days, and even more as TimesSelect matures.

Times spokesperson Diane McNulty said Tuesday that it's too early to release numbers but insisted that sign-ups were ahead of schedule. McNulty did say, however, that the conversion rate on the 14-day free trial is a "very encouraging" 90%.

When asked if the sites overall traffic numbers had been affected by the move, McNulty reported that NYTimes.com recorded a record number of unique users in September and strong pageview growth as a result of news events -- such as Hurricane Katrina -- and the online operation's search engine optimization efforts.

While the Times' Op-Ed columnists have gotten the most attention in the move, TimesSelect also incorporates the work of sports and metro columnists as well.

"I have no illusions that people are paying 50 bucks for me," said Peter Applebome, a columnist for the paper's metro section. "I think [TimesSelect] will rise and fall on what people will pay for the Op-Ed columns." For Dan Barry, another metro columnist, the impact was not a concern. "It hasn't really changed my life any," he said, but added, "this is probably the wave of the future."

So far the transition to the pay model has been relatively smooth, but popular Sunday columnist Frank Rich cited the difficulty some print subscribers have had logging on without knowing their account numbers.

"Obviously, there are bugs in this that have to be worked out," Rich said. "When I find out that relatives of mine who are Times subscribers can't get into it, that means technological bugs."

He agreed that more time needs to be given to the program. "I can't tell a big difference yet," he said, when asked to assess the impact on his column. "I get the sense that a lot of people are getting it anyway because bloggers are cutting and pasting and posting it."

Op-Ed Columnist Paul Krugman, whose writing appears Mondays and Fridays, said, "for the time being, it hurts the readers of the column. There is certainly a lot less pick-up." But as a professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University, Krugman understands perhaps better than most the financial upside to TimesSelect: "It doesn't hurt the profit center."

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