Walls of Mass Destruction
Although we can easily afford the cost of Times Select, I refuse to pay it.
We pay a monthly bill to subscribe to the paper version of the NY Times.
And in that paper version of the paper this morning, I read Maureen Dowd’s op-ed on the Judy Miller fiasco, entitled Women of Mass Destruction (here’s a link to a free version of the piece).
I want to blog it, as Jeff did today.
But I need to get to the piece in order to blog it.
And I can’t get there unless I pay more money.
This is nonsense.
We know that online content should be free and ad supported.
We need look no farther than the success of the online media giants, of which the New York Times is a member of, to understand how profitable free web-based media is.
And yet the Times is keeping its most interesting content, the stuff that always made it to the top 10 emailed stories list, behind a damned wall.
It’s bad for its customers, its bad for its business, and its bad for the open discourse that the web has created in our society.
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I say "Mr. Sulzberger, tear down this wall"