NYT to take down its pay wall for three days

[The Blue Flower]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/reader-center/world-press-freedom-day.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage

What if no one were watching?
We are living at a moment in history when democratic values are under threat by authoritarian leaders. The internet, which holds such promise as a democratizing force, has been co-opted by people peddling divisive, hateful ideologies. Citizens around the world who want to speak out are under siege from their own governments.

Imagine if no one were watching.

Imagine if The Times were not able to report from Venezuela. The government there has tried to keep us out and has attacked our correspondents for their reporting because there is something it doesn’t want you to know: Infants in Venezuela are dying of malnutrition.

Imagine if we were not in Yemen, where a Saudi-led military coalition has prompted the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

Imagine if we were not at the fence between Israel and Gaza as troops faced thousands of protesters hoping to crash through.
Imagine if we were not in Mexico to reveal how the previous government used advanced spyware to attack and undermine civil society.

Every day, journalists at The Times and other mission-driven, independent news organizations around the world work hard to hold the powerful to account. To celebrate their work and press freedom, The Times is taking down its paywall from May 3 to 5 so everyone who registers can browse as many articles as they like.

As you read today’s news, or some of the remarkable stories I mention here, consider: What if no one were watching?

Patrick Kingsley, a correspondent based in Berlin, may never have documented how the leader of Hungary is dismantling the democratic state. Declan Walsh and Tyler Hicks may have been unable to make the world pay attention to starvation in Yemen. Michael Schwirtz’s eye-opening story about a Russian assassin and a president who never forgets a grievance may have never seen the light of day.

When a dam burst in Brazil and buried more than 150 people in a tsunami of mud, The Times was there to ask who was responsible. When Grenfell Tower burned in London, killing 71 people, we revealed the lack of oversight and failed regulations that left tenants vulnerable.

Does any of this matter?
The siding that caused Grenfell to burn like a Roman candle was outlawed soon after our report. When our Southeast Asia bureau chief, Hannah Beech, wrote about an 11-year-old Malaysian girl married to a Thai man 30 years her senior, the outcry led the Thai government to bring her home. Ten days after Norimitsu Onishi and Selam Gebrekidan reported from South Africa that two children had drowned in the rudimentary latrines dug into the ground at their schools, the president announced a program to tackle the issue.

We are not patting ourselves on the back. These days, in fact, we may be closer to wringing our hands.

These reporters and their colleagues from publications like The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post often take great personal risk to bring you such stories, especially in this age of the strongman. Authoritarian leaders who once feared backlash from Washington if they went after American reporters now seem to be under the impression that they may get only a slap on the wrist — or even a nod and a wink.

Beyond a ‘Paper of Record’
For decades, The Times made a point of chronicling events big and small. Ships arriving in New York Harbor. Less-than-earthshaking resolutions at the United Nations. We were known, after all, as “the Newspaper of Record.”

We do less of that now.

History has taken to recording itself. Ship movements, United Nations resolutions and presidential speeches are all available to the curious with just a few keystrokes. So are the deep and passing thoughts of virtually every celebrity, to say nothing of those who aren’t celebrities at all — or weren’t until they blew up on social media.

And all that with no need to buy a newspaper.

Yet in a world awash in information, bearing personal witness has become even more important. That is why World Press Freedom Day resonates this year, perhaps more than in the past.

And that is why we are taking down The Times’s paywall for three days. We believe in what we do, and we think you will, too.

A note to readers who are not subscribers: This article from the Reader Center does not count toward your monthly free article limit.

Follow the @ReaderCenter on Twitter for more coverage highlighting your perspectives and experiences and for insight into how we work.

[Maeve]

1. Thank you!

[question everything]

2. I finally gave up and subscribed

Yes, it was a mistake when they all started with free access, except for the WSJ.

I now "reached the limit" whatever that is with both WaPo and Chicago Tribune.

I wish that all of the, including the British Guardian and the Boston Globe (I think) would pull their resources. I will gladly pay, I don't know, $30 a year with access to all of them.

[murielm99]

3. Maybe they could gain revenue another way,

and not have a pay wall. What about ads? Couldn't they use ads to generate money? We all hate the ads, but we know why they are necessary.

[jayschool2013]

5. Pennies on the dollar

Online ad revenues are minuscule compared to print advertising, at about a 1:15 or 1:10 ratio.

At the beginning of the online boom in the 1990s, publishers thought they'd replace print revenue with online revenue, but it never happened, except at the ratio I noted above.

A second phenomenon is that, as you noted, people hate online ads.

Back in the day, if you subscribed to the newspaper, you expected to get ads, ad inserts, special ad sections and the like. The experience of reading the newspaper would be a combined news and consumer experience, and that was the deal.

Online, users expect to have only one experience per site. If you wanna go shopping or looking for deals, you go to e-commerce sites and shops. If you want to read news, you go to a news site.

And that's what needs to be paid for, increasingly, but citizens, who should be quite aware of their vested interest in seeing independent journalism survive.

[ToxMarz]

6. So many use ad blockers now, maybe more so for those

who refuse to pay a subscription too. And the ads kind of have to approach intrusive/annoying to generate any relevant revenue. Diminishes the brand image. Kind of a catch 22.

[canuckledragger]

11. And some of us that use those ad blockers

do so because the advertisers don't seem to get that it's MY computer, MY bandwidth and MY download limit that they're tying to take advantage of and shove those ads down our throats.

I hate a page that has more ads than content, automated scripts out the wazoo, auto-playing vids that slow down/break a page, etc. (and all that unwanted useless crap eats away at my download limit, something I take offense to)

I have adblockers, script blockers, autoplaying blockers, etc. and if it breaks a page with those things on, it's not really a page I want to see then.

Not to mention ad servers have been a source of viruses and other crap in the past and present.

[Karadeniz]

4. Thanks for letting us know! I don't bother to click on their link anymore, but I will now!

[UTUSN]

7. K&R/thanks!1 & one way to get around paywall - delete the host cookies, I think

It seems to work for me when I've reached the monthly free limit - delete the NYT & WaPo cookies. And whatever other ones I can identify, since some have disguised names.

[murielm99]

8. If I start to use them often enough,

I will pay. I pay for DU. It is only fair.

[UTUSN]

9. The singling out for public shaming is noted. A review of the thread might offer you more targets!1

[murielm99]

17. You have awfully thin skin

to be posting on a message board.

[UTUSN]

18. Me "thin skin" - you/cheeky, not a good match!1

[murielm99]

19. Bye bye.

[pangaia]

15. Incognito works

[JohnnyRingo]

10. No.

I read my daily local paper every day, and there's no online substitute for newspapers in my opinion, however....

It used to be a saying that if you invent something the world needs you'll be rich forever. Now the road map to wealth is coming up with a way to get people to send you money on a monthly basis. It's become obvious through music and movie streaming, cable TV, OnStar, and internet subscriptions that many are following that formula.

Amazon, Sirius, Spectrum, and health care have strained my budget to the breaking point. These are all bills I didn't have just a couple decades ago. I understand why the NYT hopes for a national subscription base, but where do I stop? Huffington Post, Daily Beast, and many others are also competing for a piece of my pension check. The Daily Banter tried and failed to go full subscription access. Now it's gone forever.

The New York Times, I believe, will find their online publication isn't as addictive as they hope. Find another way to raise revenue in this new century or watch the Old Gray Lady die. It may be a sad demise, but one must prioritize internet subscriptions. I think most people are maxed out on monthly payments.

[handmade34]

12. I subscribe to the NYT

they are very generous with my subscription rate... I called and said I wanted it for pennies... no problem

[NurseJackie]

13. WP has reduced their one year membership for today only. $25 for a year.

[Politicub]

14. New York Times

[spanone]

16. When?