The Return of the Firewall of Sanity
posted at 1:27 pm on July 10, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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One might have thought that the New York Times would have learned its lesson from its previous efforts at subscription-only services. In 2005, the Paper of Record had the brilliant idea to hide its columnists and editorials behind a $50-per-year members-only virtual gate, thus sparing us the inanities of Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, and Bob Herbert for almost two years. By August 2007, Pinch Sulzberger finally figured out that his paper had become entirely irrelevant in the blogosphere and outside of the print-delivery area of New York, as subscribers flocked to the idea by the dozens and their columnists went unread by everyone else.
After that experience, what is the logical next step? Locking the entire paper behind the Firewall of Sanity:
New York Times Co. said in a survey of print subscribers that it’s considering a $5 monthly fee for access to its namesake newspaper’s Web site.
Times Co. also asked whether subscribers would be willing to pay a discounted fee of $2.50 a month for access to the site, in the poll confirmed today by Catherine Mathis, a company spokeswoman. Nytimes.com, the most visited among newspapers’ sites, is currently free.
Times Co. is contemplating additional sources of revenue as marketers slow spending on the Internet. Ad sales at the publisher’s sites, also including about.com and boston.com, fell 8 percent and 3.5 percent in the first quarter and fourth quarter of 2008 respectively. They gained 6.5 percent last year.
“The question here for consumers is the psychological barrier of now paying when you were getting it for free before, and you’re going to lose some readers as a result,” said Ken Doctor, an analyst at Outsell Inc. in Burlingame, California. “The New York Times will also have to evaluate what this means for ad rates as they lose readers.”
Didn’t they already do that in 2007? Newspapers like to gripe about giving away their product for free on the Internet, but that’s not really accurate. They may not get the same kind of ad rates as they do for their print editions, but advertisers do buy space on newspaper websites. They also don’t mention the readers they get from bloggers linking and discussing their articles, which drive up page views and ad dollars.
One could understand a newspaper trying this, though, in a desperate attempt to find a successful formula … if the theory hadn’t already flopped, and flopped famously, in the recent past.
Earlier this week, Slate’s Big Money predicted newspapers would try this, and discover that people wouldn’t subscribe — and especially in a recession:
Before things get that far, newspapers are likely to fumble around with experiments to find out if and how much readers will pay on the Internet. Medianews—which owns the San Jose Mercury News, the Denver Post, and 52 other papers—plans to start charging for some online stories by year’s end. The Newport Daily News, a 14,000-circulation paper in Rhode Island, charges $345 a year for an online subscription to a page-for-page digital replica of the print edition. A year’s subscription to the print paper is only $145. And that’s the whole idea: If everyone’s reading your online paper for free, charge them so much that the paper looks cheap by comparison. Now, that’s a bargain.
Meanwhile, companies like Journalism Online and ViewPass are creating e-commerce technology to help newspapers charge readers for stories while gathering personal data on them for free. (This idea of paying for information is apparently a one-way street.) So far, Journalism Online is generating greater buzz, claiming to have signed up several newspapers that will start charging monthly or per-article fees as early as this fall. Its strategy is to hide just enough news stories behind pay walls to entice 5 percent or 10 percent of readers into subscriptions while giving up less than 10 percent of ad revenue. Among Journalism Online’s founders is Steve Brill, whose past efforts to charge for content online have led to painful defeats. In 2001, Brill bought Inside.com and merged it with his Brill’s Content magazine, only to see both shut down six months later. His controversial micro-payment venture Contentville also went down in flames. …
Worst of all is the timing: The summer of 2009 is a terrible time to start charging for what was free. The Journal established its current pay-wall structure before the recession. Today, newspapers need to bargain with readers who are seeing their wages and salaries dwindle, who are saving more to rebuild nest eggs, and who are seeing the cost of everything from gas to groceries to local taxes get higher. Cable companies are thinking of charging for their online content, nabbing another piece of our monthly budgets.
So is this really the best time to start charging for online news? No. The best time was back in 1994, when the Web made online publishing to the masses a snap. And now that newspapers are finally making the move, they’re applying a 1994 solution to the 2009 Web. Today, online publishers are seeing more and more traffic coming through blogs, aggregators like Google News, and social sites like Facebook and Twitter. Ignoring them is even more perilous to a paper’s image than it was two years ago, when the New York Times tore down its Times Select pay walls. The hypertext link that made the Web unique is even more powerful today, and pay walls that break those links send would-be readers a clear message: Don’t bother.
Kevin Kelleher says the most embarrassing part of the effort is that newspapers are supposed to understand and report on the world, and yet they’re completely out of touch in their own industry. In all fairness, he wrote that before the Times began rebuilding its Maginot Line to defend itself from on-line readers.
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That’s what kills me about Noonan. I enjoy her writing style, but she’s become the poster-girl for blue-blood republican elite-think. She cut Obama all kinds of slack. I’s still waiting for her to own up that she was wrong for that.
pugwriter on July 10, 2009 at 2:35 PM
Instead of $ 5.00 per month, why not 5 cents per article? Payable through Paypal. At that rate once you sign up its invisible and “almost free.” It would take some work to set up the system but once it’s up and running you could get a hundred times as many people willing to pay a la carte then per month. But, perhaps it’s better their way. At least we know it will fail.
Fred 2 on July 10, 2009 at 2:36 PM
she looks like her snatch smells like rotten fish.
moonbatkiller on July 10, 2009 at 2:38 PM
I think we all know the alternative to the Slimes would be the Onion. Great stories and far more honest.
The Onion – America’s Finest News Source!
greasywrench on July 10, 2009 at 2:40 PM
Here here!
+100
Each and every one of those names is cringeworthy!
VibrioCocci on July 10, 2009 at 2:40 PM
Perfect! You are a genius.
VibrioCocci on July 10, 2009 at 2:41 PM
Glenn Beck likes to tout the fact that his newsletter subscription from his radio show is less than 100K shy of the total subscription to the NYT: about 1 million.
VibrioCocci on July 10, 2009 at 2:43 PM
Couldn’t be further from the truth for me… None of them is my reply.
Palin has what Reagan had that everyone seems to be missing…. a set of core beliefs plainly stated and open to see. I happen to agree with hers. She doesn’t test the wind and then state or modify a position. She has hers. If you agree, you follow. If you don’t, you don’t. That’s called leading (from the front). The others? Huck? On taxes, not so much. Mitt? On abortion, not so much. McCain? Hahahhahohhohohoohohhehehehehe… whoo, almost got a hernia there.
This concept of having core beliefs and stating them plainly for people to choose to follow is known as leadership. Reagan got elected on consertative core beliefs with NO RUSH LIMBAUGH and NO FOX NEWS. You don’t need “nuanced” decision making capabilities, you just need a set of core beliefs as your toolbox.
CC
CapedConservative on July 10, 2009 at 2:43 PM
I wouldnt read it if they paid ME
wildweasel on July 10, 2009 at 2:46 PM
CC, I was curious about those who *aren’t* fans of Palin–sounds like you are a fan (like me). I think logis was suggesting that those who don’t like Palin are still supporting Romney.
jazz_piano on July 10, 2009 at 2:46 PM
In reality Noonan is a RINO on the social issues that define the bulk of the party from people like John McCain. She supported McCain and the fact of the matter is that we would be closer to where we are with Obama had McCain won than if a real Republican had taken the nomination.
highhopes on July 10, 2009 at 2:46 PM
Well said and spot on!
VibrioCocci on July 10, 2009 at 2:47 PM
I think you’ve got it with the idea that this is doomed to expose the real popularity of everything in the NYT but the crossword. The implosion of “Media” in the last few months has been a stunning example of the American public’s rejection of propaganda. Since I’ve never been able to tolerate television, I’ve noted with some surprise my increasing addiction to the breadth of views available online. For somebody who has always experienced newspapers as (in Marshall McLuhan’s phrase) “getting into a warm bath,” the disappointment of watching the US print media self-immolate has been profound, and I firmly believe that this will eventually be the downfall of the once-proud Democratic Party.
As an aside, in regards to the line
the original (and much-funnier, imo) version was
Note the perfect scansion.
All The News That Fits, We Print.
Indeed.
warbaby on July 10, 2009 at 2:49 PM
Does Cindy Sheehan still have Absolute Moral Authority when she was is calling Democrats pro-war?
Speedwagon82 on July 10, 2009 at 2:50 PM
Well, the Compost beat them to the punch on selling access to the White House as a means of generating revenue, so they had to try something else.
Gator Country on July 10, 2009 at 2:51 PM
You are missing a crucial point CC, Reagan’s core beliefs were shaped over his career and were thought out. Palin doesn’t come across that way. I like her but I don’t think she is the right candidate. Can she fix the mess being made by Obama with nothing more than core beliefs in her ideological toolbox? I have my doubts.
highhopes on July 10, 2009 at 2:51 PM
Hey, I have an idea! Let’s take the stuff people can get for free elsewhere, and charge them for it! We’re sure to increase our readership that way. And while we’re at it, let’s soak the people who (for some unfathomable reason) already pay us money for…even more money!
Brilliant!
James on July 10, 2009 at 2:52 PM
Who? ;-0
highhopes on July 10, 2009 at 2:52 PM
Before Palin entered into the national spotlight, didn’t she work “to challenge the status quo and serve the common good”?
My thinking is that McCain picked her prematurely. Had she continued on the same path WITHOUT being thrust into the national spotlight, she would be more qualified.
Who knows what she will do now?
VibrioCocci on July 10, 2009 at 2:56 PM
Duh…just print it on your home printer!
(Now if someone could invent a home printer that would print on rolls of high-quality toilet paper, this idea might just take off. Who wouldn’t want to, ahem, rub Maureen Dowd’s nose in it?)
James on July 10, 2009 at 3:02 PM
Hey, Ed–thanks for posting a pic of the real Mo Dowd. You know, the one that catches her nasty side (the whole thing) with an expression that looks like Caribou Barbie is getting ready to throttle the henna haired harridan within an inch of her worthless life.
horatio on July 10, 2009 at 3:03 PM
Hummm, if every newspaper decided to charge for online viewing, it would effectively restrict the links from blogging. The bloggers would have to subscribe to every newspaper or they would not be able to link articles. If a reader wanted to see the original article, that person would then need to subscribe to all the news agency that are linked in a blog or article. This could effectively control the information we get as we click on a link from a blog and then have to pay to see original article.
PrettyD_Vicious on July 10, 2009 at 3:08 PM
The idea is not flawed. The Wall Street Journal charges separately for subscriptions to its paper and online versions — you can choose to buy one or the other, or pay more for both. The only flaw in this plan is that the product is the New York Times.
joe_doufu on July 10, 2009 at 3:09 PM
Conservatism doesn’t require a career to arrive at. Reagan was a Democrat and learned over his career that what he really believed in was conservatism. Conservatism isn’t some “nuanced” philosophy that requires a secret decoder ring to understand. It encompasses fiscal, military, foreign policy, size of government and social. Some people try to pick and choose… sort of like cafeteria catholics. We call them libertarians.
CC
CapedConservative on July 10, 2009 at 3:12 PM
Like others, I am so glad they are going to charge for what I don’t read anyway. With me not reading it and the new possibility that some cheap liberal college kid won’t read it either, the world could slowly become a better place.
Excellent move NYTIMES! Please proceed.
Thunderstorm129 on July 10, 2009 at 3:40 PM
Here I’m going to disagree with you a little bit. She has “core beliefs” and yes, I think with those, she can fix 0bama’s mess. Because, core beliefs are beliefs in smaller government, national security, lower taxes, etc.
cjs1943 on July 10, 2009 at 3:42 PM
Well . . . not that we know of! But given the serious money straits newspapers are in, absolutely nothing they do would ever surprise me. Circulation used to be a central factor in the business model of newspapers. That is no longer as true.
I’ll give you a local situation. I live in a very small city in New Jersey. There are three newspapers here, one “nickel news” City paper, that is owned and controlled by a consortium of “town” papers operating out of Princeton; one “county-wide” paper, which is part of large consortium; and a statewide circulation newspaper, that is also part of the same media consortium owning the county paper.
From a financial point of view, all three of them are essentially on life support, with diminishing sources of income. Nowhere near as many people buy the papers. They have let go of their staffs, and even former bureau chiefs are now “stringers” throughout the State. The City paper has but one reporter, who writes everything — soup to nuts — and not well.
One of the solid remaining newspaper income sources is that the City is required, by law, to print legal notices — but only in two papers. So our Mayor plays the three papers off against one another. No stories critical of the Mayor or of the City Council he controls EVER appear in any of the papers anymore. It is all kissy-kissy. The income they get from the City represents an increasing larger percentage of their budget — even when cost per line stays the same.
The Editor of the City paper even refused to print a fully documented letter to the editor that I submitted a while back, because she said it was “too controversial” — it was critical of the Mayor over a budget matter, and I even supplied her with a full copy of the budget run as proof of what I was saying. I submitted it as a letter because she had promised a few months before to do a story about it, but then killed it instead. Letters to the Editor in that particular paper never used to be refused, even long, rambling and undocumented ones.
The point is that I believe the changing financial situation of newspapers has the real potential for corrupting them as well.
With circulation way down, they simply have no reason for fealty to the people, who no longer buy their papers.
Trochilus on July 10, 2009 at 3:55 PM
They could pay me to visit their site. For some reason they are losing subscribers. FREE VIEWS IS OVER PRICING THE PRODUCT.
seven on July 10, 2009 at 4:01 PM
Back in the 80’s when I read that someday we’d be reading our newspapers on the computer, I thought ‘no way’. It was hard to imagine giving up the morning ritual of reading the paper over coffee. I held out until about 2000, and once I started getting my news and commentary online, I was instantly hooked. Now the habit of scattering that much paper through the house every day and leaving newsprint on the furniture, just to read yesterday’s news, seems unthinkable.
Yes, the pre-frontal lobotomy is better. :)
petefrt on July 10, 2009 at 4:10 PM
Five bucks for Maureen Dowd. That sounds about right.
RobCon on July 10, 2009 at 4:14 PM
Ok well I guess that solv… HEY!
rihar on July 10, 2009 at 4:17 PM
The people I meet in here seem smarter than 95% of the print, or TV for that matter,. pundits.Why would I need anything else?
Jeff from WI on July 10, 2009 at 4:22 PM
Maureen Dowd, now there’s 5 miles of ugly road I don’t need to travel.
Jeff from WI on July 10, 2009 at 4:28 PM
Probably Romney. It’s his “turn”, just as it was Dole’s turn in ‘96.
ddrintn on July 10, 2009 at 4:39 PM
Am I mistaken but isn’t the NYT the very same so-called newspaper that cheered as their Chosen One took over GM and Chrysler and closed car dealers all over the tri-state area, thus killing a lot of ad revenue? That got all randy when He decided to limit the pay of Wall Street bankers and NY insurance execs? That heralded the recent NY state income tax increase (and is begging the Feds to do same or worse) which will hit just about every subscriber or potential subscriber in the city? Not to mention being
the same rag that hires every washed up, lost-in-the-sixties columnist they can find, thus irritating their advertisers even more?
So, in the words of Marie Antoinette, let them eat cake. Or, in my words, s&#t.
TXUS on July 10, 2009 at 4:51 PM
Five bucks for that? That’s about $4.75 more than that two bit whore is worth.
UltimateBob on July 10, 2009 at 5:22 PM
I say it’s time to give the NYT the Old Yeller treatment.
And fast, for America’s sake.
madmonkphotog on July 10, 2009 at 5:27 PM
LOL….I don’t think that the Maginot Line of defense, quite worked out for the French…(the Germans just went around and hightailed it to Paris)…what a great plan to save your asses.
A pox on all of those effin idiots.
Oh, and lets strap MoDo to a chair and made to watch Catherine Zeta-Jones marrying Michael Douglas, on a recurring loop, till hell freezes over. Now, that’s a plan I can get behind.
luvstotango on July 10, 2009 at 5:34 PM
Ed, please don’t refer to that rag as the “paper of record” without using the required scare quotes (”), please?
GeneSmith on July 10, 2009 at 6:06 PM
Noonan is lower than bat sh*t, on my scale of rogues and traitors…even lower than MoDo.
Modo is just another effed-up liberal, that swallowed that whole woman’s movement…ended up a spinster and childless, after Michael Douglas dumped her ass, for the younger than young, CZJ.
Maybe Noonan needs a long-term assignment in Iran for some reducation. I refuse to click on anything with her name on it…she is irrelevant like the NYTimes.
luvstotango on July 10, 2009 at 6:39 PM
If by charging for access, fewer people will be exposed to that vitriolic shell fish afficcionado Maureen Dowd, then for god’s sake charge more.
CHARGE MORE!
BillaryMcBush on July 10, 2009 at 6:57 PM
I cannot imagine paying even a penny a month to read what is in the NY Times or most of the rest of these liberal, establishment newspapers. It’s just not valuable enough, literally.
DaMav on July 10, 2009 at 7:04 PM
If you are liberal you can get all the news you need from perezhilton.com
NYT and Washpo are just more wordy boring versions run by more boring wordy liberals.
BillaryMcBush on July 10, 2009 at 7:08 PM
That should be bannable. Ed?
Some disgusting stuff gets said at Hot Air but that’s beyond the line.
Rosmerta on July 10, 2009 at 7:50 PM
Look..we get at least 5-7 main stories spoon fed to us in here…..plus the ‘non-message boards” ones for info.Who needs ANY other media.
Jeff from WI on July 10, 2009 at 8:10 PM
I don’t read their website while it’s free. What makes them think I would pay for it?
roninacreage on July 10, 2009 at 9:01 PM
Dowdy Dowd is obviously insecure and completely jealous of Palin. She desperately needs to stay relevant to her Northeastern snooty buddies, so she entertains them with her columns that are dirt under Palin’s shoes. Dowdy Dowd is so emotionally frail she can’t understand a woman like Palin, Palin is so far out of her league. Dowd is over the hill and she knows it.
Peggy Noonan on the other hand has no excuse…I hope she leaves the Republican Party along with Gen.Powell. They are both traitors.
djn on July 10, 2009 at 9:40 PM
Paying to read Herbert, Blow and Dowd. GAHHHHH.
ddrintn on July 10, 2009 at 9:57 PM
I don’t even read the NYT online now when it is free, but requires a “login”.
Dandapani on July 10, 2009 at 10:11 PM
There is the Drudge Report, and AP and Reuters Yahoo AOl. I mean I can’t list them all, let the Jayson Blair Times play exclusive maybe they need to build moral support among the staffers:) I am positive no one will come in and fill the void of the paper of record…uh the website of fish wrap (Little Hat Tip to Michelle Malkin) In the age of the hyper highway do they really want to build an overpass over their exit?
Dr Evil on July 10, 2009 at 10:18 PM
Maureen Dowd can see the bankruptcy court from her window.
Paying to read the NYT? I don’t think so!
virgo on July 11, 2009 at 12:02 AM
I would totally tell them that their site is worth $20 or $30 a month or more. They live on crystal pedestals.
Then just not sign up. Screw Maureen, Frank, and Bob… they did honesty a long time ago.
iMATTER on July 11, 2009 at 1:21 AM
You’ve got to remember that these old fools came up when they still pretended they were (snickering) “journalists”, a kind of noble class of people, those investigators of corruption, who were spurred onto heroic deeds because of Watergate. I’m sure the current younger crop of so called “journalists” do not bother to portray themselves as anything more than language hookers, paid to be a liberal party gunslinger. At least they’re more honest about their whoreishness than old crones like Dowd & Thomas.
Jeff from WI on July 11, 2009 at 8:42 AM
You’d think the NYT would have made millions off all that Obama commemorative junk. Guess not.
ddrintn on July 11, 2009 at 10:13 AM
When you have to charge a fee for online subscriptions that are more expensive that the stock price for a share of your comapany, then that says something. When bankruptcy becomes inevitable, desperation becomes standard operating procedure. Paying a fee for lies seems to suggest an intellectual deficiency in the subscriber.
volsense on July 11, 2009 at 12:35 PM
Good riddance. With subscription only service, only their moonbat base will subscribe, driving their reporting even harder Left, alienating centrists and further reducing circulation (and e-circulation). Lets watch economic Darwinism take its course.
Mephistefales on July 11, 2009 at 1:27 PM
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