The Wall

Two big newspapers both announced this week (odd...) that they will begin charging for access to their Web sites.

The Boston Globe and New York Post have both opted for a pay wall restricting their previously completely free online content. Considering the only other major newspaper I can think of that does this, The Wall Street Journal, also owned by Rupert Murdoch, mostly covers financial matters and is more likely to draw people who want to pay for better analysis, it's pretty big news.

Neither paper's decision is much of a surprise. Murdoch probably saw the success of The Journal's Web site and is now instituting this policy at his foreign publications as well. The Globe, God bless it, has spend months in an awkward back and forth with its owner, The New York Times Company, in extensive arguments about pay cuts that have made the paper a lot more difficult to sell. For a few months, the Times even threatened to simply shut it down if the union didn't comply to steep demands. Neither side looked good.

The next question is how much to charge. Let's focus on the Globe, as its losses (projected to total $85 billion this year, although top execs are now saying the deficit has fallen) are much worse and it isn't owned by a crazy billionaire who cares for it.

Comparing media markets, the Post covers a much smaller region (the New York metropolitan area vs. all of New England) and faces much stiffer competition for it. The Globe is the main broadsheet publication of New England and has a daily circulation of about 200,000 more than its rival, the Boston Herald.

So the Globe, save for a powerful union, steep losses and a looming sense of closure any day, is doing alright. The paper costs $6 per week to deliver every day, for the first twelve weeks, to the Boston area. At about $25 per month, and that includes costs the Web site wouldn't require like printing press, drivers, trucks, gasoline, wouldn't $50 or so per year for Web access be a reasonable amount? It'd begin to make up the huge deficit and actually fuel good journalism.

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Things are looking a bit different these days