By: Anna Retzlaff
In the 1990s, the early days of the internet, most sites were free to visit. For news outlets, print subscriptions and advertisements brought in all the cash. Very few asked their online audience to pay.
The Wall Street Journal was the first major publication to implement a paywall for its online newspaper. In 1996, the yearly fee was $49, or $29 for print subscribers. The WSJ remained an outlier for charging their audience — until about 20 years later.
In the 2010s, print subscriptions continued to decline, and online advertisement revenue was not cutting it. More and more people were turning to screens for their daily news. Then, readers started to see paywalls instead of articles.
For years, people had access to the information they wanted from the outlet of their choice for free. Now, some of the largest publications like The New York Times operate on a subscription model. Full access to their website now costs $25 per month. Today, the WSJ charges $39 per month. Subscribing to just these two publications could put a reader back $768 a year.
The problem here is paywalls prevent people from accessing information.
The news is for the public, and journalists work to serve them. For the newspaper to function, they need to cover what it costs for journalists to get that news to the public. This is a big issue, but the answer is not paywalls.
We are in a whirlwind of misinformation, lack of trust towards news outlets and poor media literacy. So much quality, trustworthy news is locked away from those who cannot pay. Publications with a reputation of integrity and truthfulness are the ones many people want to look to for information.
It is a tragedy that only people who can pay are able to access the news outlets they want to go to. News that people feel they can trust is less accessible. That fact undermines the entire basis of what journalism means. Journalists work hard to report what people have a right to know.
The news was never meant to be hard to get, and the public should not be limited in the information they can access from newspapers. Who are the newspapers for, if not for everyone?