NY Times Select - Has Anyone Heard If It's Bombing?

[stopbush]

I know that I haven't subscribed, nor will I. Considering how supportive the Times has been of bushco,
I'm thinking more and more that the whole Times Select scheme is a way to keep certain liberal writers
off the "free" internet.

In the meantime, has anyone heard whether or not enough people have subscribed to it to keep it
as a pay service? Or are they reconsidering their decision?

[northzax]

1. well, as I recall

in November, the Times claimed something like 270,000 subscribers, half of whom were print subscribers. So let's say 135 thousand or so as of November. So it's about ten million a year in revenue, it looks like, for this year, for the op eds and archives alone. Since there were never ads on the op ed pages, that part is free money. The question is how much money is being lost from the old archives system (this has to be more than that)

basically, Krugman, MoDo, Brooks and Rich are adding ten million bucks to the Times' bottom line this year, that's not bad.

on edit: remember when everyone said cable TV wouldn't work, because TV is free? How're those prognosticators doing?

[Eric J in MN]

2. That would be $6,750,000 per year, not counting losses.

135,000 people * $50 = $6,750,000

But I visit the NY Times website less often since they put up the pay-wall and others may, too.

Also, they could give visitors a chance to watch an ad for a few minutes to read an op-ed, as an alternative (like salon.com.)

[Beam Me Up]

3. Speaking as one prognosticator...

Not only do I NOT watch cable, I don't watch broadcast or satellite EITHER. I am an internet junky.

I will never subscribe to the NYT after all the shit they've pulled. They have lost all credibility. The only thing that could redeem them in my book is to begin to ask the serious questions regarding the events of 9/11. I'm not holding my breath, just saying that is the ONLY thing that could redeem them at this point.

The dominant oligarchies of the United States and several other countries committed a serious error when they decided to accept the crude conspiracy theory peddled by the Bush regime concerning 9/11. This was a matter where a careful and judicious ruling class would have exercised more restraint, and kept more options open. The wholesale endorsement of the official 9/11 myth by the controlled corporate news media, by the two major political parties and by large parts of academia has created a situation in which the 9/11 myth is now the indispensable basis of large sectors of American life. Many institutions have in effect wedded their entire credibility to the myth. This was very unwise. We cannot be entirely certain that the truth of 9/11 will ever become generally accepted by the masses, but if such revelations should ever occur, they will now destroy far more than the 9/11 myth.

The dismantling of the myth in favor of an account at least closer to reality will have the most profound institutional implications. The Republican Party, because it has presided of the institutionalization and exploitation of the myth, would tend toward extinction. The contradictions inside the Democratic Party would explode. Many careers would go by the boards. Because the entire society is so heavily invested in the myth, the entire social order would be called into question. Even the prevalent property relations, at least in regard to media, defense industries, oil and some other sectors, would inevitably be called into question. The current status of the 9/11 myth as the substratum of so many hegemonic institutions helps to explain the absolute hysteria of the ruling elite whenever substantive critiques of the myth arise, as they must ever tend to do.

//snip//

Result: 9/11 is the lever used by all factions of the oligarchy to keep the basses in submission. This lever will break before their faces.

Quote from: From: 9/11 Synthetic Terror; Made in the USA, by Webster Griffin Tarplay. Chapter 1, pp 18.

[matt819]

4. Sure, I wish it were still free

But I subscribed to the paper when they put this system in place, and I'm not disappointed. Do I wish it were free? Absolutely. Do I agree with everything the newspaper supports or doesn't? No. It would be kind of scary if we were in lock step with each other. On balance, it's worth the cost. Do you pay for magazine subscriptions? Cable TV? Internet service? Software? Books? CDs? Even if you manage to read someone else's magazines or manage to gain access to the internet via someone else's wireless router, the oddds are you pay for some of these services. The extra $50 a year is probably not going to kill you. And if it does, go to the library and read it there. That won't kill you either.

[Eric J in MN]

5. "NY Times: Tear down that Wall"

John Amato of "Crooks and Liars" writes:

My sources tell me that the op-ed columnists of the NY Times are not happy campers being blocked from their biggest demographic: "the readers." The decision to put behind some of the most widely read opinion makers on the net is another major blunder for them. Since the wall has gone up, how often has Rich, Dowd, Krugman and the rest of the gang been linked to or talked about? I do remember Maureen's smack down of Judy Miller way back in October, but that's it. The right wing is coming out swinging for the fences now and are on a mission to label the Times as traitors for printing the spy story. Who will be able to fight back? I don't think another appearance on Charlie Rose by Arthur Sulzberger will have much of an impact, do you? They can't defend themselves if they can't be read.

continues by quoting a NY Times op-ed against Dick Cheney by Maureen Dowd:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/12/27.html

[liberalpragmatist]

6. Well, we subscribe, so I get access anyway

I dunno. I know people criticize the NYT a lot, and a lot of it's justified. But for the breadth of coverage they still can't be beat. And even compared to most newspapers around the globe, they clearly are among the best. And while I'm on another thread lamenting the decline of TIME magazine, the truth is that as a whole I'm not sure the media was really that much better than it was in the past. I think there was clearly more international coverage, and the decline in that area is tragic. But if you read old NYT archives, you actually find very little willingness throughout the '60s for example, to criticize Vietnam or the American political leadership. Only towards the end of the '60s as the peace movement really broke out did you see opposition to Vietnam really develop in the press.

As for other papers, The Guardian is very good, but although I'm quite left, I still find their ideological slant a little too obvious at times, and they rarely go as in depth as the NYT does. Financial Times is also really good. The LAT and Washington Post offer good coverage as well, although the WP editorial page is way to center-right to bill itself as a center-left paper. And if you ignore the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, their content is actually pretty decent.