Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ask Slashdot: What Online News Is Worth Paying For?

Posted by Soulskill on from the pennies-on-the-page dept.

schnell writes "The increasing prevalence of online news paywalls and 'nag walls' (e.g. you can only read so many articles per month) has forced me to divide those websites into two categories: those that offer content that is unique or good enough to pay for vs. those that don't. Examples of the former for me included The Economist and Foreign Policy, while other previous favorite sites The New York Times and even my hometown Seattle Times have lost my online readership entirely. I also have a secret third category — sites that don't currently pay/nag wall, but I would pay for if I had to — Ars Technica and Long Form come to mind. What news/aggregation sites are other Slashdotters out there willing to pay for, and why? What sites that don't charge today would you pay for if you had to? Or, knowing this crowd, are the majority just opposed to paying for any web news content on principle?"

4 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. LWN by BESTouff · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://lwn.net/ is the only news source I'm paying for.

  2. Re:50 cent by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Informative

    I get most of my news from the state funded TV network's news section of their web site. The abount I pay for this in taxes comes down to approximately $ 0.5 per day.

    Same here; BBC news and BBC website!

  3. BBC by Hypotensive · · Score: 5, Informative

    In the UK we already pay for the BBC through taxes. So we might as well use it.

  4. I paid $200 a year for the Wall Street Journal by nbauman · · Score: 4, Informative

    Until Rupert Murdoch took it over.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12...

    Under Murdoch, Tilting Rightward at The Journal
    By DAVID CARR
    Published: December 13, 2009

    Mr. Baker, a neoconservative columnist of acute political views, has been especially active in managing coverage in Washington, creating significant grumbling, if not resistance, from the staff there. Reporters say the coverage of the Obama administration is reflexively critical, the health care debate is generally framed in terms of costs rather than benefits — “health care reform” is a generally forbidden phrase — and global warming skeptics have gotten a steady ride. (Of course, objectivity is in the eyes of the reader.)

    The pro-business, antigovernment shift in the news pages has broken into plain view in the last year. On Aug. 12, a fairly straight down the middle front page article on President Obama’s management style ended up with the provocative headline, “A President as Micromanager: How Much Detail Is Enough?” The original article included a contrast between President Jimmy Carter’s tendency to go deep in the weeds of every issue with President George W. Bush’s predilection for minimal involvement, according to someone who saw the draft. By the time the article ran, it included only the swipe at Mr. Carter.

    Accurate, objective, well-selected reporting that I can depend on is easily worth $200.

    Propaganda isn't worth the time wasted.

    I still subscribe to Science magazine.