Another Brick In The Wall

By: Vaughn Ververs
Topics: Media Issues

First The New York Times took its all-star stable of opinion columnists, put them in the TimesSelect pen, and started charging admission to read them. Now it turns out, according to Editor & Publisher's Joe Strupp, you even have to pay to e-mail them:

"Back in September the Times asked the hundreds of papers who publish the Op-Ed contributors through The New York Times News Service (NYTNS) to stop printing the writers' e-mail addresses with the columns (and to take the columns off their Web sites, too). Apparently not everyone got the message, because last week the Times' syndication service sent out an advisory reminding its client papers to remove the e-mail addresses.

'If you are not a TimesSelect subscriber you won't have access to that e-mail functionality,' Times spokesman Toby Usnik confirmed Tuesday. 'It centralizes [the columnists' e-mails] around the TimesSelect site.'

But instead of being able to put an address in a mail program and firing it off at your leisure, TimesSelect subscribers now have to fill out an online form similar to the generic feedback forms found on many Web sites."

And more from The Times:

"Usnik denied that the limit on e-mails was an effort to get readers at newspapers syndicating the columnists to pay for TimesSelect instead of their local paper. 'That is not the intent,' Usnik said. But when asked what those newspaper readers should do to be able to contact the columnists, he urged them to sign up and pay the additional fee. 'The recommendation would be that they consider subscribing to TimesSelect.'"

Since The Times established TimesSelect, there's been a fair amount of grumbling on the Web about it and plenty of efforts to spread the content outside of the subscription wall (the paper's columnists are routinely among the most-searched terms on sites like Technorati). With news that only subscribers can contact the writers, you can expect a little more grumbling, although probably not much. After all, if you're not reading their work, you don't have much to talk to them about.

2 Comments Have Your Say
Email Story Send to a Friend
Share This Tell Your Friends
Tweet This Tweet This
More Share It

Add a Comment


by ronmwanga January 18, 2006 4:06 PM EST: I can fully understand -- but still be rankled by -- subscribership to TimeSelect, this new brick in the wall seems a bit too mercenary.; Reply to this comment


by ronmwanga January 18, 2006 4:05 PM EST: Good point. Then again there are the various appearances on Russert's CNBC show, Charlie Rose and Hardball; not to mention when the Op Eders are hawking books other chat forums where we don't have a chance to interact. We non-subscribers might want to discuss something said in those instances.; Reply to this comment