Mitchell: New York Times Must Experiment with Paid Content

JEFFREY BROWN: An earlier attempt by The Times to get readers to pay for some online content was called off in 2007. And the new move is, by all accounts, a risky one that will be much watched throughout the media world.

We take our own look now with Bill Mitchell of the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists in Florida, where he focuses on new economic models for news, and Bill Grueskin, dean of academic affairs at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Online, the largest subscription news sites on the Web.

Bill Mitchell, first, before we get to whether it’s a good idea, fill in the picture here a bit on the mechanics of how this would work. What’s the key piece to this?

BILL MITCHELL, The Poynter Institute: The key piece, Jeff, is that, as you pointed out, it’s really a metered system. Readers will still be able to, if they come to The Times’ site from Google or elsewhere, be able to read a certain number of articles for month. The Times has not indicated what that number will be yet. But, at some point, a wall will go up, and the reader will be informed, to read additional articles, you’re going to have to pay a fee. …

JEFFREY BROWN: So, Bill Mitchell, there was reportedly, very clearly, a lively debate within The Times, as there has been at other places, about whether to do something like this. What’s the argument for it? What’s the hope that they can get out of this?

BILL MITCHELL: I don’t think you will find anyone at The Times who would argue that they have got this really figured out yet. But I think it’s an experiment that has to be taken.

And I think the idea of seeing what people will pay for, if sufficient value can be added to the content online, is really something that’s got to be tried.

JEFFREY BROWN: What does that mean? I’m sorry, but what does that mean, sufficient value being added?

BILL MITCHELL: Well, I don’t think that people are simply going to pay tomorrow for news that is available today free, just as I don’t pay for the newspaper that shows up in my driveway. I’m not really paying so much for the news itself as I am paying for the convenience of that delivery, the experience of holding the news and the newsprint.

I think The Times really faces a significant challenge in figuring out what the digital equivalent to those kind of conveniences and user experiences are in the online edition.