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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."
but why is this important?
is the NYT important at all anymore?
not trolling, just asking!
As expected. Seems the NYT is going more and more subscription oriented. I must really ask...What is the benifit on their side for the public to register to read articles online? Just to be able to sell their emails?
Does this mean in a short while the only source for free online commentary is going to be blogs?
When was it important? When was the media EVER important? It's either misinformation, lies, or both, sensationalized reading for a world who wants "shock". If I hear about I want truth, not a story.
...that slashdot will stop linking to them?
Not trying to troll, but what's the point of linking to a story when most of your readership can't/won't subscribe to read it?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
The blogosphere is the next great playground in the marketplace of ideas; it's the closest thing to our forgotten history of town-hall meetings and individual participation that most of us have ever experienced. It's participatory mass media, a totally new thing that is remaking the political landscape -- not least by revealing whole new ways for major political organizations to form themselves and raise funds.
And the NYT has just opted out of the whole thing. That shiny new FUTURE thing? That's scary. We don't know how to make money off of it. So we'll give all that business to our competitors like the LA Times (which tried a similar stupid scheme and quickly recanted).
While registration does bug people many of us will deal with it (if only by using bugmenot) in order to discuss the ideas behind the firewall. Salon seems to be doing OK with ad-based day passes. But fifty bucks a year for the content of one paper based fifteen hundred miles away from where I live? What if all the other newspapers of interest started charging a similar amount? No thanks, guys. As Atrios said, we have too much to sort through as it is. We can get along without the NYT's columnists.
But how will the NYT get along without the buzz of bloggers discussing their content? I guess the answer is "like a local paper." If that's what they want to be, I guess someone else will step up to be the Newspaper of Record.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
...when you have people ready to post the content on Slashdot!
"Hey guys...no need to log in! Here's the article text!"
NYTimes.com to Offer Subscription Service
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
Published: May 17, 2005
The New York Times announced yesterday that it would offer a new subscription-based service on its Web site...
Actually, the point of this post was only to joke about posters who regularly save many Slashdot users the hassle of creating a login for the NYT Online. And up until now, I suppose there's been no problem with it, since the material is available for free (sans the time it takes to create a login account).
But I worry a bit about this move after thinking about some dubious virtues often shown in posts by slashdotters. Stealing article text seems to be a favorite pastime for at least a few posters, but when content is copyrighted AND no longer free, what happens when someone posts it (for a joke / for mod point / for ) on Slashdot, will NYT actually respond with any of those lovely cease and decist letters?
There is more political commentary on the Web than anyone has time to read. It is the height of arrogance for them to think their editorial page is so important that they can do what no one else can afford to. I read the NYT op-ed every day, but I'm certainly not going to pay for the privilege of reading Thomas L. Friedman phone it in.
Their news reporting is another matter. There aren't many organizations in the world with the resources to rival the NYT's reporting. But this is what they plan to give away! Stupid stupid stupid.
They should do what Salon is doing: Offer a day pass to anyone willing to watch a 30-second ad. Sell an ad-free, year subscription for, I guess, $50. In addition, continue to charge a premium for access to the archives (which Salon doesn't do, but Salon's archives aren't quite as valuable as those of the NY Times...)
But of course they can't go with someone else's proven business model, because they're the NY Times and they're smarter than everybody else! Bunch of wankers. Can't wait to see them crash and burn, then hopefully learn from experience. God knows they've got enough cash sitting around for a failed experiment or two.
NY Times Op-Ed Page Goes Subscriber-Only
Great. It will be that much easier to ignore. The paper has gone downhill in the past 10 years enormously. Ever since William Safire left there has been little reason to read the OpEd at all. It is mostly become a collection of liberal left twaddle.
an ill wind that blows no good
Sure, the NYT will be around. They will probably be New York's Newspaper of Record for a long time. But don't think the blogging phenomenon is going away anytime soon. It is developing galactic centers and niches and a whole structure which promises to be quite stable. I can easily see a future in which most people depend on bloggers to filter their news. If I find someone who has the time to read voraciously and whose links I find interesting, he gets bookmarked. And if he doesn't link the NYT any more, I sure ain't gonna pony up 50 bucks for access to their wares.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Reality is subjective, meatspace is just a part of it.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
The Wall Street Journal, which requires a paid subscription (worth every penny, by the way, as will the NY Times subscription also surely be), has essentially removed itself from Google's index. Now I realize that the NYT already requires registration, but the effect of these attempts to monetize access is to partition the knowledge on the Internet into many small fortresses.
Wouldn't it be great if every article published in the NY Times for the past 150 years were indexed in Google? There would be a thousand really interesting uses coming out of the woodwork, uses that we can't even imagine without trying it.
Yes, I know, they need to make a living, but please, let this information be free. If the searcher/finder of record (Google) is barred at the gate from the paper of record, we're losing something really valuable.
I used to be a newspaperman, and now I fight for free speech on the Internet. I wish we could find a way to honor both of these tremendously valuable traditions.
Really you don't want to read Dowd go on about how we should increase fertility technology so that we can elimitate men from the race?
Why that isn't hate speech I'll never understand. Well, hypocracy. Even some of her international papers thought it was too bigoted to publish.
The Wall Street Journal does the opposite, which I think is the right idea.
Their opinion page is available right here, for free. This makes sense, because they are trying to influence the world with it. Thus, they are more interested in power (number of readers) than money (subscription revenues).
Their up to the minute financial news, on the other hand, has real financial value to many people, and its wide dissemination is not as important as receiving money for it. I would think the same would be true of the New York Times - the articles would have financial value but the opinions would be better made free.
Intriguingly enough, the Times' subscription is actually excellent value to anyone who wants to access the Times archives. They were charging $2.95 per article or $7.95 for a four-pack of articles. Unlimited access to articles for $50 is a good deal if you want to read old Times articles in any volume.
D
Amen... I've been reading NYT online since 1995/6, and I really like their Op-Ed page -- it's the one place I consistently visit on their site -- but I'm not going to pay $50 a year to read it. It's not that good...
especially the refuse spewed out by KarlRove-lite David Brooks, aren't worth the energy of clicking the mouse button
Yeah, agree here too. I really liked William Safire (the NYT's previous "token conservative" columnist). His viewpoint sometimes drove me nuts, but he was a great read: intelligent, did a good job of backing up his arguments, and simply had a sense of style (he'd be a great person to argue with over dinner!). I suppose David Brooks is his replacement, but man he's pretty pathetic compared to Safire.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
If you have a library card, your local library may grant you free online access to the New York Times archives, among other things. At least, they have it in the Massachusetts public library system. You can access it from a home computer.
I find it ironic that NYT has decided to charge for their editorial section. I find their editorial pages to be ridiculously slanted, loose with the facts, and partisan; they seem to just call it wrong on so many issues that I don't even waste the time reading them anymore. I like a well reasoned argument, but NYT doesn't seem to know how.
On the other hand, I find the Wall Street Journal more down to earth and evenhanded, so I gladly pay the $75/year online subscription.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Do you realy think it only costs $.50 a day to bring you a paper? the cost is just to insure that you read the copy you are delivered, giving the advertizers the warm fuzzy feeling that the ads are reaching people and the paper some number of people willing to pay to read their fishwrap.
if web ads are only 2 to 3 percent of the revenue it is because there are too many places to sell ads and not enough people buying. changing to a pay method only reduces the number of impressions and therefore also the amount of revenue.
Having them go offline (or to a pay only link) lessens the value of advertizing on the Times website
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
I haven't read the WSJ. Did it blame Bush for not finding WMDs? Did it take a stance against Guantanamo Bay? Did it condemn the Israeli apartheid wall? Did it say anything bad about Karl Rove? Did it blast Rumsfeld for failing in his duties? Has it questioned the morality of a US alliance with Uzbekistan?
I'm asking a serious question, do they? If they ignore such issues like that, then I'm not gonna read it. And I'm a conservative.
It's not falsified, but they are selectively choosing what they are covering. Saudi papers have been shut down and imams in numerous countries have been fired for trying to incite violence. MEMRI does not show that. Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera air lots of pro-American news. (Jihadis despise Al Jazeera for being too pro-American, mockingly calling it Al-Khinzeera, the pig). MEMRI, despite its name, usually only translates the pieces it finds salacious, and ignoring the moderate pieces. If you read MEMRI by itself, you will think that every reporter there is anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Jewish, which is not the case. There are plenty of Arab newspapers online, go read them and compare them to MEMRI, and you find a much more moderate tone, and a diversity of opinion, as is taking place in the middle east today.
MEMRI is selective and biased against the Arab press, and that it highlights pieces that cast Arabs, especially committed Muslims, in a negative light. Juan Cole, who speaks Arabic fluently, compared a bigotted Arabic article translated by MEMRI and when he went to the source on the Web, found that it was on the same op-ed page with other, moderate articles arguing for tolerance. These latter were not translated.
It would be just as easy to set up a translation service that zeroed in on racist and "Greater Israel" statements in the Hebrew Israeli press and made the articles available in English, while ignoring more liberal newspapers like Haaretz. If most educated Americans heard the raving against "ha-aravim" (the Arabs) that goes on among West Bank settlers, they'd be completely taken aback by the bigotted terms of reference. Some of such Likudnik discourse is not different in kind from what one hears from the Ku Klux Klan about minorities in America.
You could make a similiar argument by reading a left-wing or right-wing site, it ignores all except that which reinforces their argument. Daily Kos makes Bush out to be evil, FreeP makes Democrats out to be evil, MEMRI makes Arabs/Muslims out to be evil, etc.
The people at the Times need to realize that $50/year is an amazingly unrealistic sum of money. You can subscribe to Playboy for $16.00/year, and you get good interviews, good articles, classy soft porn, some really excellent short fiction, and all the liberal opinions you could ever want.
So here's a question about the price: am I going to be paying $50/year so that the op-ed writers can afford to live in New York City? Or worse yet, so that they can afford to commute from Connecticut? I've always gotten the sense that NYC was its own little world, where the local population density has amplified demand and created a surreal amount of inflation. In Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, mocking NYC's bizarreness is a little hypocritical -- but I live in DC, and agree with my LA friends: this is a dumb move, and will serve to make the electronic op-ed section irrelevant.