Slashdot Mirror
NY Times Op-Ed Page Goes Subscriber-Only
kevinatilusa writes "The New York Times has announced an expanded subscription service to be launched this September. Subscriptions will cost $49.95 per year and include access to both the Times archives (currently available on a pay-by-the-article basis) and to the paper's op-ed columnists (currently available for free, but probably not for long). The Times also posted a more detailed explanation (registration required) for their decision."
Lets take an Ad based media business in meatspace, and try to move it to cyberspace, (I hate that word) but heres the kicker, instead of being and ad based cash flow, lets be subscription based.
Somehow I don't see this working, and I am fairly sure taht the subscribers still get nailed with ads even on the older articles.
On the other hand, full access to their archives is worth a few bucks a year (think 20), but their OP page is worth less than the electrons needed to display it.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
I was thinking the same thing. Let 'em go, its not like we can't find the same articles ad nauseam on the ole internets. The NY Times lost its credibility years ago and there is nothing that separates them from the rest of the pack. So bon voyage on your trip towards internet obscurity.
Sound waves should be free!
I personally liked the op-eds. Oh well, at least they'll still have their articles. I guess I'll just read blogs. There's enough opinion posted on blogs to fill volumes of their Times.
(to posters: Do you consider the Slashdot news pages blogs?)
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
You can go anywhere on the web to find opinions on most any issue, nearly all of them freely accessible. Instapundit on the right, Daily Kos on the left, and million smaller sites in between.
In a web that's overflowing with opinions and analysis, much of it well-written, the NY Times thinks people will pay $50 a year to read theirs? What are they smoking?
Here is what will happen after the Times initiates its plan. Some corporate customers who already pull archived articles off will sign up for this $50 program and find they also have access to the Op-Ed page. Whoopdedoo!
But my bet is like four people in the US will pay the $50 a month for the sake of accessing the Times' Op-Ed section. If you can't sell the news online, you definitely can't sell opinions. And keep in mind that a huge portion of the Times' readership now comes from web surfers. What this means is that the Times has just voluntarily traded away much of its enormous political influence for maybe $200 a year. Amazing.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
The blogosphere is the biggest fraud in the world. Oh no the blogosphere will not link NYT articles because of their registration. I guess the NYT will go down in flames right? Pffft.... first of bloggers don't read real journalism because they are so full of themselves they only read each other blogs. It's sort of like the blind following the blind.
Believe me the NYT will still be around even after blogs have come and gone.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
...my local paper, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Los Angeles Times, to get different perspectives on world events....
Um. What? For different perspectives on world issues you reference 4 US-based papers?
Reminds me of Blues Brothers:
Elwood: "What kind of music do you usually have here?"
Claire: "Oh, we got both kinds. We got country *and* western."
Seriously, don't you think you are living with blinders on? Contrasting and drastically different views are what make the Internet great. It doesn't take any effort to shop around for news.
How interesting you say that your comment exceeds three paragraphs. You are aware that a paragraph consists of more than one sentence? The bare minimum for a proper paragraph is three sentences, something I see you have failed to understand. In this case, I think that it's the content and not the style that stops people from reading your comment.
HTH.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Remember, this is just the Op-Ed section. The vast majority of stories that slashdot links to at the Times are NOT Op-Ed.
Granted, this may be a trial run to see how this may work for the entire paper's content. We will have to wait and see for that.
It's not the opinions, which aren't all that different from anyone else's. It's the manner in which they're expressed: gramatically correct English, no misspellings, precise organization & structure, etc.
For every thoughtful Slashdot comment, there are probably one hundred that are flawed in one way or another. Two thirds resemble the incoherent babble of George Bush in the first presidential debate.
The NYTimes separates the wheat from the chaff and that's what people will be paying for.
Except that there really is no such thing as a free lunch.
Good media costs. It costs because you need to get people over to where the news happens so they can see what's going on; it costs because if you're using local people, you need to figure out how they get the news back to you. It costs because, well, running a large organization costs money.
You can basically either increase income or decrease expenses. You see companies decrease expenses by moving away from good journalism and relying more on talking heads, Crossfire-style anchor antagonism, and demagoguery (ref Fox). You can see companies increasing income by, say, charging either more for a charged item or starting to charge for things that are free. You also see companies using more ads on-line, but of course this is Slashdot, where we value our God-given right to surf ad-free (and I'm not arguing against it).
There aren't that many real sources of news, and a whole bunch of people referencing them. Here's a hint: Google News is *NOT* a source of news. As companies find that they can't be profitable (enough) with real journalism, they'll stop doing real journalism. What then? Do we rely on blogs? Feel free, but blogs aren't journalism any more than the op-ed part of the NYTimes is the NYTimes.
(Yes, yes, I know, I'm about to get flamed by a bunch of wankers who'll claim blogs are the only impartial source of news they need)
It's really a silly word.
How about "reality"?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Unlike many here, I believe the NYT opinion page is worth money (unfortunately, I'd put the price point at $20 rather than $50).
Just the other day I went to a talk at MIT by Thomas Friedman where he talked about his book on globalization. It's all stuff we're pretty familiar with, but I don't think your average person spends time thinking about the impact the developing world and countries like India, China, and Russia are going to have on our economy. In fact, even I learned a considerable amount about the topic, like a fascinating set of details about the fact that companies are turning more and more into marketing shells and sourcing their supply chains to companies like UPS and others overseas. Overall I came away blown away by the insights I gained about such a complex problem.
The thing to note about this is that even the best bloggers aren't going to have access like this guy. He spent months in India, China, and Russia researching his book. He talked to leaders of countries and companies (he talked about Fiorina specifically). And his analysis was all the deeper for it.
In the end, I'd say blogs are a great resource for your latest infohit and some cheap (and very occassionally deep) commentary. But I believe the NYT op-ed page will remain relevant, and I'm going to miss it.
I still think the New York Times is of decent journalistic integrity, even after the few debacles of the past year or two. IMHO, the NYT is one of the best 'free' online US news sources.
Now their Op-Ed pages, on the other hand, vary greatly. Some op-eds are worthwhile, some are so-so, while some, especially the refuse spewed out by KarlRove-lite David Brooks, aren't worth the energy of clicking the mouse button. I think this move will not significantly affect how many visitors they get to the rest of the site. I also can't imagine too many people paying $50 just to read the op-ed columns.
I, for one, appreciate the opinion of the NYT staff writers; I don't always agree with them, but they are generally knowledgeable and critical of important issues. Their views are filtered by professional editors that try to afford some balance and accountability. In addition, NYT occasionally have Op-Ed pieces from political figures. Blogs may or may not have those qualities on a consistent basis.
Does anyone else see the irony in the fact that you need to register to see their explanation of why you need to subscribe?
Yep. The "real" news organizations provide grist for the blogger's mill.
I have been an on-line Op-Ed NYTimes reader for many years now. The pieces represent the full political spectrum from the left (Krugman) to the right (Brooks). The pieces are very well written and highly intelligent. Unfortunately, $50/year is kind of steep for my budget, so I will deeply miss this source of information.
However, I understand their reason for targeting the Op-Ed pieces. They are usually the "Most E-Mailed Articles". Over the last 7 days, for example, Op-Ed articles were 11 out of the 25 most e-mailed articles.
Long term, cutting that off (because only a very small fraction will bother to subscribe) is in my view going to cost the paper more in reputation that it'll gain in short-term revenue.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
For every error the mainstream media makes, the "alternative" media makes one, or likely many more. So I guess I'm asking -- What's your point? Both sides make mistakes. On the whole most people have already made up their minds which is more credible.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
People like Friedman et all largely use the NYT as a source of personal publicity, to gain a larger "mind share" for their opinions. This is usually towards the end of publishing, TV apperances, or other ambition.
The NYT charging will eliminate much of the influence that the the op-ed page once held with the people who consider themselves influential. People with a good deal of economic and intellectual psuedo-might to drop around.
In the end, the columnists at the NYT will not be able to set the agenda like they are used to doing. Previously, it was the newcasts - national and local - that took the queues from the NYT, and this put whatever they were saying "into circulation". Now, people like Druge, the Daily Kos folks, Instapundit, LGF, Powerline, TNR, Townhall, Freerepublic, and all of them have a big sway into moving things into the mainstream.
Basically, circulation or readership equals influence. And this is going to cut circulation drastically, which will affect influence nearly identically.
...are right on the money. I don't know how many times I've been reading David Pogue's technology column, when suddenly he'll launch into a 2 page diatribe about how the grinding gears of capitalism have produced another 6 megapixel camera only by exploiting the weak proletariat masses, but one day the oppressed will rise up and over throw the cultural hegemony of white male software.
Oh wait, I do know how many times I've read that: Zero.
Seriously though, I think all this crap about how "liberal" the Times is is basically meaningless. It's a big paper, and each writer and editor have their own view of the world. To take an example, before the Iraq War, Judith Miller kept "leaking" information about Saddam's enormous arsenal of WMD and the intricate ways in which the Pentagon was planning on destroying them. I know that Thomas Friedman and David Brooks gave tentative approval to Bush's decision to invade (don't remember about some of the other conservatives though). On the other hand, Bush was caught on the mic saying that reporter Adam Clymer is "an asshole" during the 2000 campaign.
Each reporter is a different person, and each story is a different story. By saying "the New York Times is liberal," you take something that's really complex and flatten it to a single dimension without gaining any insight into the real interworkings of it.
I was thinking the same thing. Let 'em go, its not like we can't find the same articles ad nauseam on the ole internets. The NY Times lost its credibility years ago and there is nothing that separates them from the rest of the pack. So bon voyage on your trip towards internet obscurity.
Nicholas Kristof. The most intelligent and insightful opinion writer alive. If you don't curently read him, you should.
He is a liberal, but he is very reasoned and thoughtful. Unfortunately, reasoned and thoughtful doesn't generate the controversy that partisan and inflamed do. So Krugman and Brooks get talked about, and Kristof just keeps writing the smart copy.
What you said is logically equivalent to "square are circular, area is just a part of it."
Reality = "that which is exists independent of the observer, that is to say exist objectively." (Of course, there may or may not be any such thing.)
subjective = "depending on the observer."
meatspace = "related to physical objects, people."
The terms you combined don't really make any sense together. What you're trying to say is, "Experience is subjective, and the physical world is only important as it impacts us subjectively, since objective reality either does exist or isn't important to human life."
Ah, philosophy nerd urged satisfied.
it's become the de facto US outpost of the global web media (in the same way that The Guardian is in the UK)
The Guardian is a heavily left leaning broadsheet enjoyed by what some would deem to be 'the liberal elite' in the UK, it has no credentials of 'de facto' anything. It's just a left leaning broadsheet aimed at left wing intellectuals and is certainely not representative of the 'people' of the UK. Because it is well understood to be left-leaning, it's articles always represent that POV, therefore it could never be regarded as a de facto outpost of global web media.
To some extent one might argue the BBC would be a better candidate for such a title, but even then it has it's own slant and views on things which would make regarding it as such foolish.
The whole point of a global media network, is that there is no one defacto hub, it is a collection of different outlets with different POVs and audiences to satisfy.
The NY Times and the WSJ are essential reading for decision-makers. You'll find both being read in any town big enough to rate a single traffic light. The Time's core audience, like that of the WSJ, is at a level where subscription fees are the norm.
You can't do that if you ignore what one side of the issue is saying. You're just seeking reinforcement of beliefs you already hold, rather than seeking out the truth on your own.
Good advice. It is the lack of diversity of opinion at the NYT that I am lamenting.
an ill wind that blows no good