NY Times to charge online users for access to content
Will it work?
Obviously, it depends on whether readers think the Times' journalism is worth paying for, and it depends as well on how much the Times will be charging. The conservative Wall Street Journal -- unlike the ultraliberal Times -- charges a hefty subscription rate for its popular online content, and the Journal also happens to be the nation's biggest circulation newspaper.
Let's admit something. The Times does occasionally pull off some first-rate journalism, even as its conservative critics rightly criticize it for the liberal spin it puts on its supposedly objective news articles. However, first-rate journalism alone does not necessarily mean that loyal Times readers will be willing to cough up a subscription fee.
I say that based on who the Times readers are (compared to those of the Wall Street Journal), and I say that based on a regular look that I take of the most e-mailed articles at the Times and Journal.
To paraphrase an old saying: Show me who your readers are, and I'll show you who you are. Well, take a look at some of the most e-mailed article at the Times and Journal, and it obviously says something about what's important those papers readers, and it says something about their values and worldview. This of course raises another question: Would these readers be willing to pay for the types of stories that they are so quick to e-mail?
Here, as of mid-afternoon today, are some of the most e-mailed stories from the Wall Street Journal and New York Times:
Wall Street Journal:
1. Opinion: Boston Tea Party
2. Opinion: Lanny J. Davis: Blame the Left for Massachusetts
3. Opinion: The Message of Massachusetts
4. Opinion: Terry Miller: The U.S. Isn't as Free as It Used to Be
5. Unfinished Projects Weigh on Banks
6. How to Buy Disability Insurance
7. GOP Victory Upends Senate
8. May I Hate the Saints?
9. Opinion: Michael Mann's Climate Stimulus
10. Opinion: The Great D.C. Migration
New York Times: