In a new essay entitled Build the Wall, David Simon (who was a Baltimore Sun reporter before he produced The Wire) argues that if the larger newspaper industry is to survive, The New York Times and Washington Post must start charging readers for access to their websites (preferably done as a single action in concert with each other) — John Gruber, Dave Winer, and the folks at Gawker disagree, and Steven Berlin Johnson argues that while the future for newspapers might be quite bleak, the future for journalism and high quality analysis is actually quite bright. Meanwhile, the Times is currently doing market research to see if it's readers would be willing to pay $5 a month for online access, and the Associated Press announced it's intent to build a new news DRM system that will enable users to “consume, mash up and share AP content based on rights”.
posted by dyslexictraveler on Jul 24, 2009 - 128 comments

Atlantic Magazine opens its archives. Atlantic Magazine announced today that they will drop subscriber-only access to the site, giving full access to every issue of the last 12 years. Where to start? Well, I particularly recommend David Foster Wallace's fascinating examination of right-wing talk radio (DFW trademark footnotes intact), Hitler's Forgotten Library, and Eric Schlosser's The Prison-Industrial Complex. (via)
posted by Horace Rumpole on Jan 22, 2008 - 51 comments