NYT Publisher: Only Teenagers, Unemployed Will Game Paywall

[Derechos]

Arthur Sulzberger Jr. knows it’s going to be possible to keep reading his newspaper, The New York Times, for free after its online pay meter kicks in on Monday. But he’s not too worried about it, because, in his view, the only people who will try to do that are the sorts who don’t matter: teenagers and the unemployed. And both are thieves if they do it.

“Can people go around the system?” Sulzberger, the Times’s publisher, asked at a roundtable discussion hosted by the Paley Center for Media this morning. “The answer is yes, just as if you run down Sixth Avenue right now and you pass a newsstand and you grab a newspaper and keep running, you can read the Times for free.”

“Is it going to be done by the kind of people who value the quality of the New York Times reporting and opinion and analysis? No,” he continued. “I don’t think so. It’ll be mostly high-school kids and people who are out of work.”

“I can’t believe I just said that,” he added. Perhaps Sulzberger realized how much he sounded like Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly, who famously dismissed viewers of “The Daily Show” as “stoned slackers.”

http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffbercovici/2011/03/23/nyt-publisher-only-teenagers-unemployed-will-game-paywall/

[Poll_Blind]

1. Now there is a man who enjoys making the papers.

PB

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. "quality of the New York Times reporting and opinion and analysis"

The NYT has proven to my satisfaction that it no longer cares about honestly reporting the news. After Judy Miller and other scandals, I could care less about the NYT. I will miss Krugman and a few others, but the rest can piss off.

Also Sulzberger is the classic example of a spoiled, rich kid that will destroy the family business. Screw him!

[Lithos]

3. They will find that their walled garden

Is not very compelling. They do not offer anything which can't be found elsewhere for free.

L-

[hobbit709]

4. What possible reason would entice teenagers especially to game Paywall?

Or the unemployed?

[elleng]

5. What a jerk! Was pretty clear after Judy Miller fiasco,

but he really does not deserve the position he's inherited and has done such a good job trashing.

[FormerDittoHead]

6. They tried it before and it failed. They're going after your iPhones and Kindles...

Thanks to the new devices, they have a "channel" of people with enough disposable income which they can reliably distribute their paper and get paid for it.

What they're not banking on is people dropping the gray lady from their blog entries and msg board posts. Will ANYONE reference the times anymore knowing that (next to) NO ONE will clicking on the link?

[elleng]

7. Right, same thoughts here. REALLY hope it fails,

but concerned about availability of decent reporting and following discussions henceforth. They do have good 'on the ground' reporters around the world.