Comments on: TS

By: ndebord

ndebord — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 05:14:23 +0000

Really can’t abide the concept of blocking the Times columnists from the world wide web unless you pony up bucks. Sent this letter to the new Editor of the Times in protest.

“A letter to the Editor in Chief Leonard M. Apcar

The idea that your best and brightest writers are now behind a pay to view firewall (online) discredits your standing as the premier opinion maker in journalism today.

Precisely because of this ill-thought out money grab by the New York Times, I will no longer buy the Sunday Times, which I have bought religiously for some 25 years. I’ll also miss some of my favorite writers online, but I’ll get over it as I peruse the Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post instead.”

By: PoliBlog: Politics is the Master Science » The Great Experiment

PoliBlog: Politics is the Master Science » The Great Experiment — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 02:21:15 +0000

[...] ..and the Blogosphere yawned and turned the page to other sources of opinion (like, say, on blogs and WaPo and OpinionJournal andWaTi and BoGlo and the LAT and Slate and all that stuff at Real Clear Politics and Jewish World Review and all those links at Drudge and Townhall and at Salon and…well, you get the picture). [...]

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 14:36:38 +0000

I decided to pay for a subscription and, so far, am actually rather pleased with the Select product. Apart from access to the columnists that I used to read for free, there is promise of pseudo-blogs for each of those writers, fairly extensive access to the archives, a decently handy “Times File” in which to store articles to come back to, and access to columnists at IHT (which I admit to never reading before, was this formerly free?). Is it worth the forty dollars? I’m inclined to say that it is.

It really shouldn’t surprise anybody that the Times would eventually devise some form of subscription service for their online content. Their online readership has got to be immense, and up until now they haven’t asked for anything, other than a practiced overlooking of a few unobtrusive advertisements. At times it seems to me that a significant portion of writing in the blogosphere could be classified as Times commentary and, while this does much to expand the brand-name’s dominion, it does little to pay the bills and the writers. While this new ploy may not be a cash-cow, it hardly seems fitting to begrudge their attempt to make some money from being the most prominent daily on the web.

By: Kevin Brancato

Kevin Brancato — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 13:26:14 +0000

This is like Wal-Mart requiring a membership fee to shop at any of their stores; this would be an immense signal to the other discount retail chains that the time to expand is now…

By: Kirk Parker

Kirk Parker — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 04:50:39 +0000

bad jim,

This must be some new meaning of the word “good”…

Or do you mean waaaay back when he used to be a theater critic?

By: RedWolf

RedWolf — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 03:52:55 +0000

Then NYT will sue those illegally downloading oped pieces. Brooks and Tireme will support under the Bush doctrine.

By: bostoniangirl

bostoniangirl — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 01:55:44 +0000

I wonder whether the Krugman unofficial archive would continue to be tolerated by the New York Times but for the fact that Krugman’s columns are sydicated.

By: Davos Newbies » Blog Archive » The NYT Select disaster

Davos Newbies » Blog Archive » The NYT Select disaster — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 00:33:47 +0000

[...] Further update Kieran Healy sums it up: “We won’t have David Brooks or Airmiles Friedman to kick around any more. But is that bad for us, or for them? NYT columnists are the pinatas of the conscience collective. If not so many people are reading them, you have to wonder whether it’s worth signing up yourself just for the content. I think we benefit at CT. The Times makes you pay to read Paul Krugman, but his substitutability with our own John Quiggin is pretty high, and as of this evening we’re therefore a better deal than ever.” [...]

By: Will Baude

Will Baude — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 00:15:10 +0000

My understanding is that the Times has a new syndication deal that will forbid other newspapers to offer up the columns for free. I don’t know what sort of deal it has with the authors, or whether the pkarchive site is legal.

By: steve kyle

steve kyle — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 23:57:43 +0000

You may think the Times columnists are worthless. Perhaps they are. But a lot of people are like my mother and think that what these people say is very very important. So it makes sense to read them if only to get an idea of what millions of people who consider themselves well informed are being told to think. If you are politically inclined, this is where the general public gets its frame on major issues. Also, even with complete idiots like Brooks it is possible every once in a while for a reasonable idea to surface. And when there are no reasonable ideas what better way to reconfirm your happiness that you arent a Republican?

By: Charles Dodgson

Charles Dodgson — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 18:48:57 +0000

As long as we’re on the subject of what it makes sense to charge for, it seems to me that the Times—- and a lot of other major news sources—- are getting archive charges exactly backward. The most useful and popular stuff they have, by a wide margin, is the current day’s news. So why not put the current stuff behind the pay wall, and open it up after a week? That way, the archives would be the loss leader for the more valuable current content; right now, they’re doing the reverse.

(A side benefit to the blogging community would be that we wouldn’t need to strip-mine Dave Winer’s RSS feed for semi-permanent links to Times news coverage, but I wouldn’t expect that annoyance to play a role in their decision making. Though to the extent that they’re considering blogs at all, perhaps it should…)

By: Slocum

Slocum — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 17:09:59 +0000

Given that the columns are, apparently, going to continue to be syndicated and appear on other free news sites, I don’t think this will have much effect. The NY Times columnists will lose a little influence, the Times will get a little money, and it will give up on the experiment in a little while.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 15:12:21 +0000

Plus, it is good to withhold your money as a small but satisfying protest against the past decade of horrible Times coverage ranging from Whitewater to the Iraq war.

That’s pretty much where I’m at, mq. I bought the print version of the Sunday Times faithfully until a couple of years ago, and it was essentially the disgraceful hackery of that supposed First Amendment Martyr Judy Miller that pushed me over the edge. I’ll miss Krugman and especially Frank Rich, but I wouldn’t dream of giving the NYT a dime unless & until there’s a thorough housecleaning (and I’m not holding my breath on that).

By: MQ

MQ — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 14:56:05 +0000

The Times op-ed page isn’t worth a dime. Krugman is nice to read but he channels the collective wisdom of Democratic policy analysts; if you keep up with Delong, the American Prospect, etc. his stuff will not be news to use. Brooks, Tierney just put a (usually pretty lame) spin on Republican talking points. Dowd, Friedman are off in their own world and you don’t want to follow them there. The other thing here is that the 600-800 word op-ed is an extremely limited format that is unlikely to teach you very much if you already keep up with public policy and the news.

Plus, it is good to withhold your money as a small but satisfying protest against the past decade of horrible Times coverage ranging from Whitewater to the Iraq war.

By: James Wimberley

James Wimberley — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 13:07:25 +0000

Like John kay, paul krugman allow3s his column sto b epostefd free on the figleaf site by an “unknown fan”: http://www.pkarchive.org/ .