The New York Times really knows how to eat it's own children.

First to keep going ,they sell off 2 great radio stations WQXR AM/FM
leaving one relocated in such a small FM bandwith that most
of us can't receive it in Manhattan as the Pop music stations
on the upper band of the FM spectrum push the small watted WQXR
out. Of course the content at the old WQXR was watered down 24/7.

Then they bring in a backer, one of the wealthy men from Mexico
who actually is the richest man in the world presently and that did not
work either to keep them free floating.

Now this nonsense will backfire as well.

I think the Sulzberger era is over soon and the new building on 9th
avenue will become a monument of failure... too bad!

How about offering just web site access for $7 a month? It's not like they're giving us any paper.

And what idiot told them they needed a new building anyway?

Bah. Already get the wsj on Kindle.

I don't understand why they did this, and for so much money per month compared to other attempts. Paywalls have never worked except for the WSJ because of their niche business market and generally wealthy readership. Almost every major newspaper around the world has tried a paywall at some point in their lifespan and it almost always failed. The internet savy generation isn't going to pay it plain and simple, so I'm not sure who they are targeting. Also it seems just stupid to start at such a high price point, going from free to $15 a month? why not start at dirt cheap $.99, like all those little tiny iphone apps that ended up making millions, then raise the price when popularity builds.

Aint none of yall know shit about post print media. That's right, big words.

The NYTimes has to enact a paywall. All newspapers have to enact paywalls.

Advertising was NEVER the main way that papers made money. Classifieds were. Classifieds started sneaking away in the 1960s with specialized magazines like Auto Trader, and disappeared wholey in the 90s when the papers missed the boat on online classifieds.

Further more, newspapers fucked up when they first got online by comparing the price of printing ads on paper, to the price of putting ads online. The online ads didnt cost shit to create, and they didn't understand the potential of the internet, so they threw their shit online for free and charged close to nothing for digital ads.

The public on the internet has grown up with a misguided ethos that everything is free. The napster generation is coming in to its own, and their expectations of how much content should cost online are totally out of wack.

Newspapers must reset customer expectations as to what media costs. Newspapers are vital to our country for the long form, analytical content they alone are able to produce regularly. Newspapers must enact paywalls.

Excellent post. I'd like to react to one statement you made in particular:

"The public on the internet has grown up with a misguided ethos that everything is free. "

- Luther, Fanning, and the Neilson company might counter that with the statement

'the publishing industry has grown up with a misguided ethos that content rather than the monopolization of delivery models has generated past sales'.

"That's right, big words"

Your credibility is instantly at zero, both because the "biggest" word you used before tossing out that attempt at an insult of your readership had all of five letters, and because your grammar through your entire post wouldn't get you through a high school English exam.

It would be a good idea, if you are going to try to play this "I know more than any of you" game, to work a little on your writing skills.

Until then, sorry: it's hard not to simply dismiss your opinion, "yall".

If you're judging my thoughts on the basis of the words used to express them, well, that's your own problem I guess.

I certainly hope you're being facetious in your last paragraph. Many, many of my friends do not get a newspaper that contains yesterday's history. Instantaneous news via the internet is the news retrieval model.

Have fun with your buggy whip, too.

There's a huge difference between the news Twitter provides, and the news the NYTimes provides. Twitter is excellent for real time news updates, it is true. However, there is little validity on Twitter. Twitter also cannot produce in depth analytical writing. It can tell you the ground is shaking, but it can't analyze the way that parents anger at shoddily built schools is affecting the political situation in China, the historical context of such, and an analysis on how it will affect the countries economic and political situation moving forward.

Al Jezera & Xinhou are expending alot of resources to demonstrate to western audiences that they too can provide analytical reporting in the same way British sources did 10 years ago. As long as new media sources are in competition with the NYT, somebody will be able to do parallel reporting for less cost.

NPR or CNN or BBC will just throw up a written script they've already produced for a radio or television production; basically using the same reporting for both fungible and non-fungible medias.

Whereas the Times brings you Thomas Friedman.

Indeed, that is one in the minus column for the Times.

Sorry but the Times doesn't really have any journalistic credibility left. I'm not paying.

Then why read it anyway.

WSJ has been successfully charging for content for at least a year (about $16/month). The NY Times can probably do the same. But $35/month is just ridiculous (or, in their words "Best Value").

My .edu addy will still get me in free, right?

So wait it's not based on IP address but session cookies?

IP address would limit people on mobile devices from cellular-type connections, they often share the same IP blocks.

WTF did they spend $40 million on?!?!?!? Did that include buying the development companies?