We thought the New York Times’ idea to charge internet readers to read their top columnists was an unwise idea and could boomerang — but it now seems even worse when you view it in this turbulent context.
(The “top emailed stories”? That list CAN’T be accurate. It doesn’t include any posts from our site!)
UPDATE: On the other hand, Gary Farber at the end of this post convincingly asks what the big deal is over the Times’ charging to read columnists when it’s easy to still read them for free (and he shows you how).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.