The biggest hesitation I had about my new job was working behind a paywall. In fact, I requested a meeting with the website’s editor during my job interview to talk about it. After a couple months working here, here’s some notes on how it’s affected my online life.
Troubles
• In my previous job and at my campus paper I always wanted to help promote my reporters’ work. Call it my way of showing them I appreciate their work as much as I fantasize they do mine. Because of the paywall, I can’t link to shareworthy stories I look at during my shift. It would be a useless link for most because stories that make print edition require a subscription to read online.
Note: The paper also has some Web-only reporters who cover daily breaking news. Their content is normally free online. Some breaking wire content is also given away. Videos, blogs, graphics and the like are free because they’re considered supplemental to the print edition.
• My other issue is what I like to call “link jealousy.” Back in Lynchburg, if I saw central Virginia Twitterers linking to competitors more than us I got bit frustrated and felt like we were losing out. Now I’m in a situation where seeing links to my own company is extremely rare. It took quite some time for me to adjust to seeing rivals get all the links from the Little Rock Twitter users I follow.
Advantages
• While my eye still twitches when I see rivals’ links posted more often, not being able to link to my office’s work has enticed me to read the rivals’ websites without feeling like I’m being disloyal. I imagine my old habit of refusing to look at rivals’ sites is exclusive to me, but my new situation has broken me out of it and made me more of a consumer and less of a link dumper. Reading rival content leads me to often consuming the same facts more than once and helping me get familiar with my new area quicker. Maybe soon enough I won’t have to hit up Google Maps to check every intersection or search for each North Little Rock alderman’s name every time.
• The increased consumption ties into my top advantage to my new environment: I’m more of an online listener now. Before, I was the one wanting to tell the community what links to consume. Now, I find myself the one weighing which links to look at. It makes for interesting observations from the other side of the glass. I’ve been able to spend more time reading content from Little Rock-area bloggers than I did in Lynchburg. As a result, I give more of a crap about my new online community than I did in my past (at least as far as with people I’ve met less than three times).
In conclusion, while the paywall idea is still odd to me, the lessons I can adapt to my online life are very valuable. It’s good to get in touch with and observe your consumer side.
Luke Morris 
11 comments
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October 18, 2010 at 5:03 pm
Keith
Very interesting observations. I appreciate hearing from someone inside the system.
No surprise that I’m very opposed to pay walls. As a subscriber to this particular paper I can read the articles but I’m frustrated that I can’t pass along an excellent op/ed or news item. I’d be much more satisfied if the media outlet provided a way for me to share an article and let the public see it based on my subscription. Heck, add a link to the top that says “you are seeing this article Thanks to Keith who subcribes… what don’t you”
I don’t mean to jump into a paywall debate just wanted to say I always appreciate the perspective of journalists and media professionals as it relates to social media. Keep the posts coming.
October 18, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Luke Morris
I know I’ve heard of a site doing it that way before, but can’t remember who.
As far as the paywall debate, I treat it like I do the stylebook at every job: I respect the decisions of my superiors because they’re more familiar with the market and customer base.
October 18, 2010 at 5:24 pm
mitch
I am decidedly less likely to continue linking to an online site known to erect paywalls. Fark.com has a blacklist of paywall sites it refuses to let be submitted, especially because some paywalls (read NYT) are notoriously fickle with when they will show content, and when they do not.
Websites without paywalls do exist, and they make money. I’ll never get the logic of newspapers who want to survive, but erect paywalls to keep the profit motive. If newspapers would restructure as non-profits, there wouldn’t be a need for this mess.
October 18, 2010 at 6:57 pm
lifeintheboomerlane
Interesting post. Newspapers are struggling to survive, but this doesn’t seem to be in their best interest.
October 18, 2010 at 7:50 pm
ryoko861
I can understand the newspaper industry’s need to survive.
Nothing is free anymore.
I’m really buggered about a London newspaper that I used to read. It was free up until this past June. Now it’s subscription only. The only thing I really read in it was one columnists column. I really miss reading it.
I know no one likes it, but in this day and age, you do what you have to do to stay employed and in business.
October 18, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Andreas Moser
What would be really interesting to know is how much online traffic your newspaper has lost and how many paid subscriptions (both online and in print) you have gained.
I live in London where one of the good papers, The Times, adopted the subscription model this summer. I don’t quote it any more and can’t link to it any longer, but it’s not that much of a problem because there are a few other high quality papers (The Independent and to a somewhat lesser extent The Guardian). – I think if I lived in an area with only one quality paper and it would go beyond the paywall, I would get a subscription (preferably in paper with additional online access).
October 18, 2010 at 11:24 pm
milieus
The video has been blocked in Canada on copyright grounds. That’s too bad.
October 19, 2010 at 12:55 am
Evie Garone
I’m opposed to paywalls. Newspapers are having such a hard time surviving. I still like a good old fashioned newspaper in my hands sometimes, I enjoy the New York Times Tuesday Edition of the Science Times its very insightful and informative. My husband has been reading and collecting them for years so when we go on vacation we have entertaining reading at hand.
evelyngarone.com
October 19, 2010 at 5:38 pm
teknophilia
I’ve seen a lot of paywalls, but they’re usually limited to print (book/magazine/newspaper) that appears online. It seem like a lot of ad revenue and exposure is lost to paywalls, rather than getting new visitors/subscribers.
October 19, 2010 at 5:58 pm
munira's bubble
ok, no idea what a paywall is, but i loved the cartoon in the end! haha!
October 22, 2010 at 7:41 pm
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