Want My Opinion? Let me pass the hat first. . .

Investor’s Business Daily (subscription required) reports on the two-month old experiment by the New York Times in which internet viewers must pay to access the paper’s Op-Ed columnists. The imposition of a $7.95 a month fee includes access to the paper’s eight Op-Ed columnists and 14 other opinion writers. The Times’ move is an effort to recoup cash from formerly free internet content. “We created a large user base in less than 60 days with people willing to pay a significant price,” Times president and general manager Scott Heekin-Canedy told IBD. The article quotes one internet research analyst, Barry Parr of Jupiter Research, as saying: “Putting those columnists behind a subscription barrier is going to decrease the NYT’s influence and diminish its brand. Maureeen Dowd available anywhere on the Net is more powerful than Maureen Dowd behind a paid subscription a year.” Obviously in this experiment the NYT is putting a need for profit above the potential influence of its top opinion writers. It’s likely, though, that political and business leaders the Times hopes to influence already pay for a print subscription, or receive daily digests of the paper’s opinions. It’s those of us from outside New York who want to learn good writing from some of the best who will suffer the most. As Doug Tsuruoka of IBD notes, "The question for the New York Times is whether enough people will find its columnists compelling--and if that revenue is worth any resulting decline in influence."