The New York Times Wants You To Pay (Sort Of)

If you read articles from The New York Times online, you may have established an account with the Times in order to get greater access to the material posted online.  Until now, The New York Times online has been more or less free.  If you have established an account, you should have received a copy of the following email in March from the NYT, letting you know that this is about to change:

Dear New York Times Reader, Today marks a significant transition for The New York Times as we introduce digital subscriptions. It’s an important step that we hope you will see as an investment in The Times, one that will strengthen our ability to provide high-quality journalism to readers around the world and on any platform. The change will primarily affect those who are heavy consumers of the content on our Web site and on mobile applications. This change comes in two stages. Today, we are rolling out digital subscriptions to our readers in Canada, which will enable us to fine-tune the customer experience before our global launch. On March 28, we will begin offering digital subscriptions in the U.S. and the rest of the world. If you are a home delivery subscriber of The New York Times, you will continue to have full and free access to our news, information, opinion and the rest of our rich offerings on your computer, smartphone and tablet. International Herald Tribune subscribers will also receive free access to NYTimes.com. If you are not a home delivery subscriber, you will have free access up to a defined reading limit. If you exceed that limit, you will be asked to become a digital subscriber. This is how it will work, and what it means for you: On NYTimes.com, you can view 20 articles each month at no charge (including slide shows, videos and other features). After 20 articles, we will ask you to become a digital subscriber, with full access to our site. On our smartphone and tablet apps, the Top News section will remain free of charge. For access to all other sections within the apps, we will ask you to become a digital subscriber. The Times is offering three digital subscription packages that allow you to choose from a variety of devices (computer, smartphone, tablet). More information about these plans is available at nytimes.com/access. Again, all New York Times home delivery subscribers will receive free access to NYTimes.com and to all content on our apps. If you are a home delivery subscriber, go to homedelivery.nytimes.com to sign up for free access. Readers who come to Times articles through links from search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter will be able to read those articles, even if they have reached their monthly reading limit. For some search engines, users will have a daily limit of free links to Times articles. The home page at NYTimes.com and all section fronts will remain free to browse for all users at all times. For more information, go to nytimes.com/digitalfaq. Thank you for reading The New York Times, in all its forms. Sincerely, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Publisher, The New York Times Chairman, The New York Times Company

Like many American newspapers, The New York Times has grappled with the age of the Internet, where the overwhelming amount of "free" content has often pushed aside established journalism, whether print or broadcast.  The internet has spawned whole new methods for people to get the news:  the "blogasphere", social networking sites like Facebook, media sites like YouTube, and global instant messaging via Twitter.  Of course, these new media have weaknesses.  The Internet voraciously demands to be fed 24/7 with the news, latest, most interesting stories.  Fact checking and analysis sometimes get left behind.  Stories run like wildfire before they are fully investigated and often end up misrepresenting what actually happened.  In the end, however, once a version of something has spread around the world on the Internet it is difficult to convince people that there is a more nuanced, more difficult truth to be told.  The Internet provides us with the illusion that we know everything there is to know with a few clicks or touches.

The Canadian trial run went well, so in the NYT has rolled out this program in the U.S.  After encountering some announcements online, in early May I received the following e-mail offer:

Dear NYTimes.com reader,

As a valued NYTimes.com reader, you are invited to enjoy unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps at a special introductory rate. Subscribe today and save 50% for 26 weeks.*

Unrivaled coverage. Unlimited access.
Visitors to our site get 20 free articles a month, but that’s fewer than 1% of all the published articles on NYTimes.com each month. Subscribe now at our introductory rate and enjoy unlimited access to all the breaking news updates, video, audio, multimedia and more. The finest reporters in their field keep you informed 24 hours a day on your computer, smartphone and tablet.

Exclusive offer — save 50% for 26 weeks.
This limited-time offer is available only to select NYTimes.com readers like you. Subscribe today and choose from packages that include unlimited access to NYTimes.com, plus our smartphone and tablet apps. And enjoy access to the world’s finest journalism — any way you want.

Clicking on the link, I got the following pricing summary:

NYTIMES.COM + Smartphone App

Unlimited access to NYTimes.com and the NYTimes smartphone app.
See details $1.88 / WEEK for 26 weeks

NYTIMES.COM + tablet app

Unlimited access to NYTimes.com and the NYTimes tablet app.
See details $2.50 / WEEKfor 26 weeks

All digital access

Unlimited access to NYTimes.com and the NYTimes tablet and smartphone app.
See details 4.38 / WEEK for 26 weeks

Doing a little math, the unlimited package costs you $277.60 for 52 weeks (one year).  A year of home delivery of the actual paper costs $384.80 and it also gets you unlimited access to NYTimes.com.

The New York Times is not the only premium publisher trying to figure out how to price itself in the digital age.  Try accessing content online at The Wall Street Journal.  You will get some pieces without any sale pitch.  Increasingly, however, you will find messages that direct you to subscribe to get the full article that you are looking for.  The New Yorker recently announced that it is selling subscriptions on the iPad.  Other premium publishers are in the this market.  As we all move increasingly to the use of iPhones and other smartphones and iPads or other tablets, we are abandoning the traditional paper publishing products.

I have a regular subscription to The New Yorker.  I have cherished this magazine since discovering it somewhere in my youth.  I know that people get it in the mail (before it hits the newsstands) and devote a evening to reading it.  I have never been able to do that.  I think many others have reached that point.  We subscribe to support a distinctive and distinguished publication to keep it alive, as we would a worthy charitable cause.

On the evening of May 1 President Obama announced the U.S. forces finally had located and killed Osama Bin Ladin.  In the ensuing days, the media was filled with details, analysis and commentary.  (The Internet also was full of scams trying to capitalize on the enormous interest in this story.) The New Yorker was no exception.  Online by way of my iPhone, I was able to read insightful reporting and commentary from The New Yorker and other publications, coverage that would have taken hours, days or weeks to reach me in print.  In fact, the online publications and the print publications are becoming very different things.  The Internet requires that the best online content must be timely and incisive.

So The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York, Wired and many more print publications, all of which still hold to some central principles of traditional journalism, have struggled to preserve their distinctive brands.  Economically, they cannot continue to give everything away for free on the Internet.  The advertising revenue that fueled print journalism for years just isn't there on the Internet.  Most of these publications have to offer something for free to draw an audience to their online sites, but they have to draw a line somewhere and try to collect some revenue for "premium" content.  Let's hope for the sake of the internet as a medium that informs and educates us that these publications and others like them find a way in the new technological world.  We desperately need analysis and intelligent discourse on the Internet, to counter-balance the error-filled flood of spectacle and scandal and sensationalism that too easily can prevail.