Washington Post reportedly considering adding a paywall in 2013

[frahse]

The WP just made me login in over on the Opinion Page.

They are considering a paywall.

article

[jmilica]

Originally Posted by frahse

The WP just made me login in over on the Opinion Page.

They are considering a paywall.

If they do it same like NYTimes - the count of free articles restarts once you clean your browser's history - then it's not an issue, at all...

[TallMomof2]

I certainly hope that as a print subscriber (my DH refuses to give up his newspaper) that I won't be required to pay any extra for the online content.

[tubemonkey]

Google News = free

[ebusinesstutor]

I find there is so much free news out there, that I don't really find much worth paying for. If one goes behind a paywall, I just find another quality RSS feed. So I build my own newspaper with articles of interest to me.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by jmilica

If they do it same like NYTimes - the count of free articles restarts once you clean your browser's history - then it's not an issue, at all...

That is just the start my friend. Just the start.

Try getting into the Wall Street Journal beyond what they let you peep at.

There are levels of protection they can use.
First they offer inducements. Coffee mugs, hats, the ability to search back into the archives, appeals for the good work they do, ...
Second they pester you with warnings, with "you have used 5 of your 10 free tries" working off cookies.
Third they remember your IP.
Fourth, don't don't let you in pass the outer gate without passwords biometric checks, etc., except at designated port holes where you watch from a distance things that could be more interesting if you could get closer.

The first 3 things are circumventable.. The Fourth is much harder. (i.e. WSJ)

Then comes the clincher.
Fifth, they sue anyone that aggregates or repeats their stories, data.

Still there will be News Sources. The TV channels and their own line presence are one I will mention.

Personally, at this point in time, for me, the argument that many of the News Papers, (MSM) etc., are important to the country is more than balanced by what I see as overbearing bias. I would just as soon see (m) a lot of them gone.

I like the old journalism. The facts please.

That is not to say that there should not be opinions or editorials, guest pieces and the like, but separate that out, and identify it plainly.

[vugtitan]

Originally Posted by frahse

That is just the start my friend. Just the start.

Try getting into the Wall Street Journal beyond what they let you peep at.

There are levels of protection they can use.
First they offer inducements. Coffee mugs, hats, the ability to search back into the archives, appeals for the good work they do, ...
Second they pester you with warnings, with "you have used 5 of your 10 free tries" working off cookies.
Third they remember your IP.
Fourth, don't don't let you in pass the outer gate without passwords biometric checks, etc., except at designated port holes where you watch from a distance things that could be more interesting if you could get closer.

The first 3 things are circumventable.. The Fourth is much harder. (i.e. WSJ)

Then comes the clincher.
Fifth, they sue anyone that aggregates or repeats their stories, data.

Still there will be News Sources. The TV channels and their own line presence are one I will mention.

Personally, at this point in time, for me, the argument that many of the News Papers, (MSM) etc., are important to the country is more than balanced by what I see as overbearing bias. I would just as soon seem a lot of them gone.

I like the old journalism. The facts please.

That is not to say that there should not be opinions or editorials, guest pieces and the like, but separate that out, and identify it plainly.

The mainstream media is largely big money sponsored.it is full of lies,bias and same old **** while important stories that are relevant to people are ignored or given pro corporate spin. no wonder their readership is going down.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by frahse

That is not to say that there should not be opinions or editorials, guest pieces and the like, but separate that out, and identify it plainly.

I'm looking at the left-side panel of the Washington Post via Calibre, and this is what I see:

World
National
White House
Business
Opinions
Local
Entertainment
Sports
Redskins

I find the categorization clear. If you instead use an eReader browser to go to www.twp.com (Washington Post mobile site), categories are similar.

Now, even a factual article requires some POV for fact selection. One correction for this is to label borderline opinion articles as "Analysis." A more significant correction for this is to present a range of views in potentially controversial news stories, and to have a wall between the editorial and business sides of the paper.

Originally Posted by frahse

Still there will be News Sources. The TV channels and their own line presence are one I will mention.

Television news, in the US, has tended to be, by Washington Post standards, either analysis or opinion. And it is often uncategorized. In many on-line TV news web sites, opinion pieces and factual Associated Press stories are presented side by side without any warning that one is punditry and the other an honest attempt at objectivity.

Originally Posted by frahse

I like the old journalism. The facts please.

How old are you? The old journalism I remember best is investigative -- Woodward and Bernstein, Seymour Hersh, Barlett and Steele. Some of these people are still writing for newspapers, but, relatively speaking, today's mainstream US newspaper journalism is more hard news and less analysis, if only because muckraking costs money.

[frahse]

SteveEisenberg

1. I referred to TV News and in particular local as a source of news as the old sources huddle together in an unreachable underground crypt or dry up and blow away. (Thank goodness.) I didn't say they didn't have their own problems with viewpoint, on politics, etc.

2. In the panel to the left as you refer to it, I only see one category that explicitly states that it might have other than the facts.

3. Perhaps I should have said I like the old journalist emphasis on facts. The J. Schools I understand it are now totally up todate with opinionated and one sided teaching.

4. As for what you call old journalism, I don't claim real familiarity with those people except for Hersh who had a wild daughter who shot at some cops and belonged to one of those strangely names groups.

5. This "POV for fact selection" is a travesty of an idea.

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by frahse

3. Perhaps I should have said I like the old journalist emphasis on facts. The J. Schools I understand it are now totally up todate with opinionated and one sided teaching.

If I have detailed knowledge on a subject, I notice that the journalists often get things wrong. Even with easy stuff. Dr. Dean Edell spoke about the poor quality of medical journalism. I must assume they get things wrong in other areas as well.

There was a guy who would send out phony press releases. The names and contact information were fake. Yet a bunch of outlets ran with these stories because they made no attempt to verify. They have run urban legends as factual stories.

Why would I want to pay for this?

[cjr72]

Originally Posted by frahse

Try getting into the Wall Street Journal beyond what they let you peep at.

If you copy the article title into google search and click into the article from the search results you will often get the entire article. At least that's been the case with me.

[frahse]

cjr72

You are singing to the choir my friend. I have done that and other things like that many times.

I have subscribed to WSJ before, but decided that I didn't have time to follow it and get my money's worth. I generally check out RCP and sometimes get a lead into the Journal.

Sometimes though something is really interesting, even astounding sounding from the little bit you get to look at and you try and try to get the whole thing. Then finally 2 weeks later you find out that the heading/blurb really was misleading and it wasn't that astounding at all. At that point, you realize that most of it is garbage and so money or time spent trying to see everything is just wasted.

[MV64]

I haven't seen too many instances of where I would need to pay to get news. The Internet is so full of news sites there's really no reason to pay for news. Especially since none of the big ones break real news stories anymore anyway. I can wait the 10 minutes for it to pop up somewhere free.

Have paywalls hurt website usage, or do they actually work to bolster a company's bottom line?

And usually you have to pay for the Editorials, which usually suck.

[Joykins]

I found this article interesting: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmo...-like-the-fts/

I've been using those paywall workarounds for a long time but I am not the kind of user who subscribes. I just want to read an article every now and then when it's linked. The kind of user who subscribes (has the money and wants to read a LOT of articles), will probably pay to avoid the hassle of the workarounds.

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by Joykins

I found this article interesting: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmo...-like-the-fts/

I've been using those paywall workarounds for a long time but I am not the kind of user who subscribes. I just want to read an article every now and then when it's linked. The kind of user who subscribes (has the money and wants to read a LOT of articles), will probably pay to avoid the hassle of the workarounds.

Personally I think that a lot of the subscribers are expensing the costs. Their company is paying. Also a lot of times, people in the same business, like medical doctors have an agreement to provide professional courtesy. No money exchanges hands but they each benefit from the expertise of the other. My guess would be that they do count these arrangements in their subscriber numbers but not on their tax returns.

I have done it with aircraft.