4 ms·

If you don't believe the money that the NY Times spends reporting stories and producing quality journalism is worth it, please just don't read their news. It c

If you don't believe the money that the NY Times spends reporting stories and producing quality journalism is worth it, please just don't read their news. It costs money to hire quality journalists and send them around the world to report on the news. If you're willing to pay the cable company $100/month or more to pipe Jersey Shore into the house, you should be willing to pay the New York Times to bring you the news they spend so much to report.

wesbos 16y ago
I totally agree. This wasn't an exercise is getting around the business model but rather a quick tutorial so show how laughable (or possible by design) their hiding of articles was. If they really wanted to hide the content, they could easily check for the cookie on the server side rather than doing on the client side.
- vacri 16y ago
  Nonsense. It was dressed up as a tutorial to "style the content of a page to your liking", but you know something, I learned very little about styling a page to my liking in that tutorial. The game is also given away by the name of the supplied function: "Paywall smasher". The "tutorial" is the thinnest veneer of an excuse I've seen in a long time, and sits right alongside all those people who torrent scores of gigabytes of "linux isos" every month.
Alex3917 16y ago
"It costs money to hire quality journalists and send them around the world to report on the news." Investigative journalism is probably around 2% of their budget. Paying the New York Times to support journalism is like eating every meal at Burger King because they donate 1/10th of a cent from each hamburger to Japan. If you want to donate money somewhere, give it to Salon.com or NPR.
- olalonde 16y ago
  Don't Americans already donate to NPR through taxes? Edit: Why the down vote, did I hit a sensible cord? For the record, I'm not American.
  - spacemanaki 16y ago
    NPR member stations get some money from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, which is funded by the federal gov't. NPR itself gets less than they do. According to Wikipedia, 1.5% of its funding is from CPB. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding
    - thematt 16y ago
      You're right, but that's not all the funding they get. The member stations also get tax deductions, grants from federal/state/local government as well as grants from government funded universities. This is from a (clearly) slanted source, but their numbers seem above-board: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/how_public_is_nprs_funding.html http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/how_public_is_nprs_fu...
- donohoe 16y ago
  No. Its not 2% of our budget. NYT (to the best of my knowledge) has the largest newsroom in the world (even after recent layoffs and hiring freeze). As such thats a very very large expense. While this same newsroom covers nice and safe things like Travel, Arts, Books, Crosswords and such it also covers things that entail 4 journalists getting detained and abused in Libya, a photographer losing limbs in Afganistan, reporters abducted by the Taliban, and all the other war, economic, analytical, and political reporting that is done. The NYT is far from perfect but its not Burger King. I should clearly state that I work there - this opinion is my own and very very personal
  - Alex3917 16y ago
    "It also covers things like involve 4 journalists getting detained in Libya, photographers losing limbs in Afganistan, reporters abducted by the Taliban, and all the other war, economic, analytical, and political reporting that is done." But how much of that is actually investigative journalism versus reporting, opinion, or shallow analysis?
    - donohoe 16y ago
      I'm going to avoid this argument. I'm not going to change your mind. The only thing I can say is look at the CNN homepage, and then look at the NYTimes. EOM. Update (since i cannot reply to your comment): I don't know the %, but i know is greater than 2. I can ask and see if anyone can give me an actual figure.
      - Alex3917 16y ago
        "The only thing I can say is look at the CNN homepage, and then look at the NYTimes." I don't see that's relevant to how much the NYT spends on investigative journalism. You say I'm closed-minded, but you're the one whose not willing to disclose the actual percentage.
  - high5ths 16y ago
    I love the NY Times, but I'm angry at both the subscription options and their price points. As has been pointed out elsewhere, they make no sense: $x = NYtimes.com (website) + smartphone app $y = NYtimes.com (website) + tablet app $(x+y) = NYtimes.com (website) + smartphone app + tablet app So you can effectively cancel out the website access, even though that's all that many of us want. The value of the website is $0? (Also worth noting that there is absolutely no conceivable reason that a tablet app should require an additional subscription. If you're going to make everything à la carte, then price it that way and let me pick. But there's no way I'm going to accept that the website would be priced at $0.) Do I think the Times spends oodles of money to report on tons of topics nobody else wants to cover? Yes, and I want to support that. But what they've done with these subscription options is convince me that they don't understand how the industry is actually changing. For $23/month (which is just a little over the cost of $y above), I could get M-F delivery of the paper and the complete $(x+y) digital package -- and throw out all the papers I receive. This makes no sense.
baddox 16y ago
I don't pay for television, and I've never seen Jersey Shore. I literally only view NYT articles online when I'm linked to them from a site like Hacker News or reddit.
- scott_s 16y ago
  Then you will probably be unaffected by the paywall, since it sounds like you read less than 20 NYT articles a month.
- jaysonelliot 16y ago
  I assume that you're capable of substituting another entertainment or news option which you do pay for in the example. Literalism is a logical fallacy.
tomjen3 16y ago
>If you're willing to pay the cable company $100/month or more to pipe Jersey Shore into the house I am not. And if that is your argument, then sir you have lost.

wesbos 16y ago

I totally agree. This wasn't an exercise is getting around the business model but rather a quick tutorial so show how laughable (or possible by design) their hiding of articles was. If they really wanted to hide the content, they could easily check for the cookie on the server side rather than doing on the client side.

vacri 16y ago
Nonsense. It was dressed up as a tutorial to "style the content of a page to your liking", but you know something, I learned very little about styling a page to my liking in that tutorial. The game is also given away by the name of the supplied function: "Paywall smasher". The "tutorial" is the thinnest veneer of an excuse I've seen in a long time, and sits right alongside all those people who torrent scores of gigabytes of "linux isos" every month.

Alex3917 16y ago

"It costs money to hire quality journalists and send them around the world to report on the news." Investigative journalism is probably around 2% of their budget. Paying the New York Times to support journalism is like eating every meal at Burger King because they donate 1/10th of a cent from each hamburger to Japan. If you want to donate money somewhere, give it to Salon.com or NPR.

olalonde 16y ago
Don't Americans already donate to NPR through taxes? Edit: Why the down vote, did I hit a sensible cord? For the record, I'm not American.
- spacemanaki 16y ago
  NPR member stations get some money from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, which is funded by the federal gov't. NPR itself gets less than they do. According to Wikipedia, 1.5% of its funding is from CPB. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding
  - thematt 16y ago
    You're right, but that's not all the funding they get. The member stations also get tax deductions, grants from federal/state/local government as well as grants from government funded universities. This is from a (clearly) slanted source, but their numbers seem above-board: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/how_public_is_nprs_funding.html http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/how_public_is_nprs_fu...
donohoe 16y ago
No. Its not 2% of our budget. NYT (to the best of my knowledge) has the largest newsroom in the world (even after recent layoffs and hiring freeze). As such thats a very very large expense. While this same newsroom covers nice and safe things like Travel, Arts, Books, Crosswords and such it also covers things that entail 4 journalists getting detained and abused in Libya, a photographer losing limbs in Afganistan, reporters abducted by the Taliban, and all the other war, economic, analytical, and political reporting that is done. The NYT is far from perfect but its not Burger King. I should clearly state that I work there - this opinion is my own and very very personal
- Alex3917 16y ago
  "It also covers things like involve 4 journalists getting detained in Libya, photographers losing limbs in Afganistan, reporters abducted by the Taliban, and all the other war, economic, analytical, and political reporting that is done." But how much of that is actually investigative journalism versus reporting, opinion, or shallow analysis?
  - donohoe 16y ago
    I'm going to avoid this argument. I'm not going to change your mind. The only thing I can say is look at the CNN homepage, and then look at the NYTimes. EOM. Update (since i cannot reply to your comment): I don't know the %, but i know is greater than 2. I can ask and see if anyone can give me an actual figure.
    - Alex3917 16y ago
      "The only thing I can say is look at the CNN homepage, and then look at the NYTimes." I don't see that's relevant to how much the NYT spends on investigative journalism. You say I'm closed-minded, but you're the one whose not willing to disclose the actual percentage.
- high5ths 16y ago
  I love the NY Times, but I'm angry at both the subscription options and their price points. As has been pointed out elsewhere, they make no sense: $x = NYtimes.com (website) + smartphone app $y = NYtimes.com (website) + tablet app $(x+y) = NYtimes.com (website) + smartphone app + tablet app So you can effectively cancel out the website access, even though that's all that many of us want. The value of the website is $0? (Also worth noting that there is absolutely no conceivable reason that a tablet app should require an additional subscription. If you're going to make everything à la carte, then price it that way and let me pick. But there's no way I'm going to accept that the website would be priced at $0.) Do I think the Times spends oodles of money to report on tons of topics nobody else wants to cover? Yes, and I want to support that. But what they've done with these subscription options is convince me that they don't understand how the industry is actually changing. For $23/month (which is just a little over the cost of $y above), I could get M-F delivery of the paper and the complete $(x+y) digital package -- and throw out all the papers I receive. This makes no sense.

baddox 16y ago

I don't pay for television, and I've never seen Jersey Shore. I literally only view NYT articles online when I'm linked to them from a site like Hacker News or reddit.

scott_s 16y ago
Then you will probably be unaffected by the paywall, since it sounds like you read less than 20 NYT articles a month.
jaysonelliot 16y ago
I assume that you're capable of substituting another entertainment or news option which you do pay for in the example. Literalism is a logical fallacy.

tomjen3 16y ago

>If you're willing to pay the cable company $100/month or more to pipe Jersey Shore into the house I am not. And if that is your argument, then sir you have lost.