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By David Rothman

image Is the New York Times keen on committing journalistic harakiri or at least the financial variety?

Just when the Times needs more revenue, some geniuses there want to charge for reading it beyond a certain word count or pageview limit, according to the New York Observer.

Jeez. Are saboteur at work from within? People who doesn’t give a squat about the online advertising revenue? This is crazy. Imagine punishing the paper’s biggest fans. But keep reading. I’ll propose here another paying model that Times might use—charging for immediate access to certain articles useful in business.

Pledge approach: A second model discussed

imageA second plan under discussion would be to invite readers to pledge money to the Times in return for such goodies as specialized Web articles as invitations to Times events. That would be reasonable if the Times kept prices low. In some respects the pledge approach might overlap with the old Times Select approach, under which, in return for $50 or so dollars  a year, readers enjoyed access to certain sections of the paper. I was a happy Select subscriber and felt I got my money’s worth.

For-pay won’t work at most papers, but the Times is a special case, like the Wall Street Journal. If Sulzberger and crew can focus on charges for material that would be useful to readers for business purposes, they just might be able to pull this one off. The big mistake of Select was not to plug in the “read-for-biz” factor. I wish the Times luck at survival. Just please—no metering!

Additional details:

[Executive Editor Bill Keller] said that the masthead and executives hope to reach a decision by the end of June, but after a decision is reached it would then take weeks, perhaps even months, to develop the software to make either of these systems possible. He said that it is possible that a pay model may be applied to The Times’ mobile Web site first before the Web site as a whole. He also warned staffers at the internal meeting—the semi-annual newsroom meeting he hosts, informally titled "Throw Stuff at Bill"—that this was an "update" on where the paper is leaning and that no firm decisions have been made.

One other possibility, which I’ll suggest myself: How about letting paying subscribers enjoy faster access to certain articles? Maybe eight hours ahead of nonpayers? This model would allow the Times to continue letting Google index it in depth and include working links that let even nonsubscribers see the content fairly promptly. Great for the ad model!

(Via Reading 2.0)

 
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