United, Newspapers May Stand -- NY Times Article

I've got to run, but in an attempt to spur more discussion of the actual article, I'm going to post a little more of it:

 

I'm actually having a hard time with the notion that if I don't really care if I'm registered with the mighty N.Y. Times -- I am, by the way -- that I'm somehow committing a giant sin if I also happen to be in the newspaper business. And that somebody who'd express that opinion must be being "sarcastic or ironic."

On the other hand, this is exactly the kind of thinking you'd expect with the SportsJournalists.com name "YankeeFan:" That everything begins and ends with New York City.

Oddly enough, this isn't really even meant to be a knock. It's just a given among people who come from up there, including a lot of my friends down here in South Florida.

 

Free online if you subscribe, paid online subscription if you don't get the print version.
Rinse, repeat.
It isn't that hard.

 

I've been pushing that to our editor for more than two years.

 

WFW.

 

We tried that once at a paper I used to work for. Went over like a lead zeppelin (not to be confused with Led Zeppelin).

 

If one lawyer charged a fee while the others worked for free, which lawyer(s) would starve?

Can't be a one-paper-at-a-time endeavor -- has to be done by a critical mass of the news operations, nearly simultaneously.

Anyone getting cute and breaking ranks should be ... shunned. (Can't encourage actual violence, right?)

 

Not taking sides in a fight about NYC-centric thinking, but I live in the Deep South and find it hard to imagine anyone in the newspaper biz who did not, at some point this decade, take a few minutes to register with nytimes.com. Hell, It's my home page. Of course, I've been told I'm an unhirable loser because I'm not on Facebook, so I guess it's to each his own. And I'm not dogging anyone. Just can't imagine a journo not wanting access to the rich-in-content NYT site.

 

Point taken, J.D. I think there's still a certain N.Y. 'tude among many of those who say "How can you not read the New York Times," but point taken.

 

But wouldn't that be collusion, or price-fixing, or some such?

 

I actually agree ... it would probably be worth a shot again. Nothing really to lose.

 

Agreed that it's worth a shot.

I don't think any of these things are likely to work, but you can't go down as an industry while doing nothing but hoping people really, really like webcasts.