Jeff Kidd is editor of The Beaufort Gazette and The Island Packet. He has lived in Beaufort since 1992 and previously was sports editor of the Gazette and the Packet. | An article last week by Ken Doctor of the Nieman Journalism Lab included this interesting observation:
Paywalls have taken their share of abuse since The New York Times reopened the digital circulation debate three years ago. But in those three years, my, how things have changed. Charging for digital access has gone from experimental to mainstream. In fact, you’ll be hard-pressed to find many daily newspapers in the U.S., Canada, Scandinavia, or Germany that won’t be charging something for digital access by the time 2015 rolls around. But as 2013 begins, we see a new twist: Now it’s digital-only news and magazine sites and journalists who are about to launch their own digital circulation strategies. (Emphasis added.)
Fancy that. New media is following the lead of legacy media.
Here are other recent articles about paywalls and metered access to digital news:
Newspaper Paywalls Canada: If You Build It, Will They Pay?
Washington Post, Daily Beast Jumping On The Paywall Bandwagon. Too Late?
The tale of 3 paywalls: E.W. Scripps goes all in, Gannett brags, Washington Post thaws
Pay Wall Push: Why Newspapers Are Hopping Over the Picket Fence
As most of you likely are aware, the IslandPacket.com and the BeaufortGazette.com began metering online access in December. You can learn more about the mechanics of our system by clicking here, and get an explanation for it from publisher Sara Borton by clicking here. Comments about our service can be directed to digital@islandpacket.com, digital@beaufortgazette.com or 877-706-8100. To subscribe, click here for The Island Packet and click here for The Beaufort Gazette.