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."
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)
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.
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?)
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.
...and only in the US would describing a newspaper as "liberal" be reagrded as a criticism!
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