PressEthic

If you're like the many Americans who start their day with a cup of coffee and a perusal of the New York Times' Op Ed page, you're in for a surprise next week. As of Monday, September 19th, "The Paper of Record" is introducing TimesSelect, which will be require a $49.95 deposit for online access to various functions of the Times, including the Op-Ed pages where such popular columnists as Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman, and David Brooks practice their craft.

The Times' decision to charge for their Op-Ed content has prompted a variety of reactions from arguably their biggest consumers, bloggers. Kevin Drum, the writer of the left-leaning Political Animal blog for Washington Monthly, removed the New York Times from his "blogroll" and explained his decision by writing "[The Times] made it clear they no longer want to engage with the hoi polloi." On the other side of the political aisle, the conservative SoCalPundit explored a different angle, asking, "Is this an attempt to defend these writers from the onslaught of scrutiny that Powerline [a conservative blog] and other blogs have thrown at them?" Even the Paul Kadrosky, the writer of Infectious Greed, a blog that concerns itself exclusively with the goings-on of the financial world, weighed in, writing that the Times' decision is, "almost certainly the wrong move." But the reaction that both interested me the most and had the most relevance to this Press Ethics class is that of John Aravosis of AmericaBlog: "People will still get copies of the articles, they'll still email them around the Net, some Web sites will still republish the entire articles illegally, and we'll end up linking to those sites instead of the New York Times ..."

As a regular reader of the New York Times, I can understand Aravosis' disappointment. Charging for online content -- especially when the consumer is subjected to intrusive web advertising on the same site -- seems contrary to the foundation of Internet, which, upon its introduction to the public, promised to usher in the availability of free and accessible information at the click of a mouse. Disappointed as I may be, though, is there any way to justify a blogger posting or 'republishing' the Times' paid content? The questionable ethics of "traditional" journalists has long been under scrutiny; heck, the general public assumes it's a prerequisite to practicing in the field. Shouldn't bloggers be held to the same ethical standards?

As a consumer, I hope TimesSelect fails miserably and the Op-Eds are available for free in a few weeks. But I'll either grumble and plunk down my credit card or find another site that will serve the same purpose as the Times previously did. Is abiding by the rules too much to ask of some in the blogosophere?