Smart versus dumb: influencing public opinion (NYT Firewall)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.dailykos.com/

Every columnist's goal is to influence public opinion. That's why they put up with the abuse that every single column generates. Because they hope their voice has an effect in the public debate.

And there are a million voices out there, all clamoring for a piece of the "influence" factor, especially now with the advent of the weblog. Opinion is a commodity, with more to be found than could ever be processed by anyone.

In addition, publications (and broadcasters) seek to aggregate those influential voices into a greater whole -- an institution that can shape and move public opinion. With mass influence comes prestige, power, and all manners of perks.

The Wall Street Journal is not stupid. They're smart. They've put their news content behind a pay wall and have done quite well revenue-wise for their troubles. BUT, they also want to influence public opinion. And being a key component of the Right Wing Noise Machine, the WSJ editorial board has made sure their opinion material is accessible to everyone. Heck, they have a guy emailing their content to bloggers. They even have a separate site for it:

Kos links to an interesting piece from Jay Rosen.

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2005/09/22/tms_slct.html

<snip>

Outing: “Steve Klein, an online journalism professor at George Mason University, says one of his students raised an excellent point during a class discussion this week about TimesSelect: ‘Even if the Times picked up most of its existing online readers, how are they going to grow a new generation of online Op-Ed readers if they keep the columnists behind a pay firewall?’ Good question.”

Yes, it is. My own questions start with this sentence in the corporate side’s press release, describing TimesSelect as “a new product offering subscribers exclusive online access to the distinctive voices of the Op-Ed, Business, Metro and Sports columnists of The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune (IHT).”

The phrase “exclusive online accesss” advertises two different goods. The first good is the work of the Times columnists themselves. The proposition that some will pay for that is hard to prove until you try, but it’s simple to understand. The second good being advertised is exclusivity. You, the lucky TimesSelect subscriber, have access to these voices. Others do not. The value proposition there is muddled. If we prize up-to-date information about petroleum markets, we might value it more—and pay a premium—if the news is exclusively available to paying customers; but do we value Nicholas D. Kristof’s column more if he’s an “exclusive?”

<snip>

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan wrote this on Tuesday of debut week: “Memo to Arthur Sulzberger: I would have linked to John Tierney’s excellent NYT op-ed today on how Wal-Mart is better able to deal with natural disasters than FEMA. But only Times Select readers can read the link. So I won’t. Nyah nyah.” But the more telling comment was his announcement of a deal he struck with the Washington Post:

Here’s an interesting contrast: next Tuesday, this blog is going to be streamed to the Washington Post’s online opinion section. WaPo, unlike the NYT, is trying to reach out to bloggers and increase the interaction between old and new media. They approached me; and I’m always up for an experiment. WaPo will carry my lede item at any given time, and a couple of teaser headlines for the rest. I have no idea what to expect; and neither do they. But it’s one of the first real cooperative ventures between an independent blog and the MSM.
Sullivan adds: “Ironic, isn’t it, that the day the NYT shuts its opinion pages off from free access, the WP actually opens its doors to independent bloggers?”

[bluestateguy]

1. The New York Times is not what you would call a populist paper

That's why I think the Daily News and the Post have so much appeal--but the Post especially appeals to right wing populism, unfortunately.

But the Times has a tendency to publish sanctimonious editorials, preachy commentary and elitist, establishmentarian perspective of the world.

Look at the letters to the editor page. Geez, you'd think you were reading a bunch of short papers written by students in a graduate school seminar. Sometimes it's refreshing to read words like "son of a bitch" on the LTTE page.