All The News That's Fit to Print

I started my day, as I frequently do, with a cuppa coffee and the NY Times, which I read online.

(We subscribe to the Seattle Times, which I don't read except maybe on Sunday, sometimes. The Spouse reads it on the bus. Then he brings it home and gives us "the quiz"...some goofy little "test your knowledge" thing. It's a dinner time game. And then he tosses it into a big basket behind his chair that eventually freaks me out so I dump it in the recycling. My point is that I sometimes advocate for dropping our subscription but he won't hear of it because he likes the comics. Even though I'm pretty sure he could find every one of them on line, for free).

Reading the NY Times isn't something I do to feel superior to my Seattle Times reading husband. It's just that the local paper doesn't do much of a job of international issues or national politics and that's the stuff in which I'm interested (even though blah blah, all politics is local, blah blah). Plus, the NY Times does reviews of plays and musicals that I'll get to see in 3-5 years when they finally get around to touring all the way out here. And the NY Times has really good columnists.

For a while there, you may be aware, the NY Times was trying this thing called "Times Select", wherein if you wanted to read Maureen Dowd or Paul Krugman or David Brooks you had to sign up, pay money and then and only then could read them online.

Seriously.

I was furious. So furious that I almost cancelled my subscription, for which I pay $0.00. I flirted with the Washington Post. [Actually, more than flirted. We get together at least a couple times a week. And the BBC. We're not even going to count NPR because that's the radio. Totally different.]

I wouldn't have objected, theoretically, to them charging a small annual fee for an on-line subscription. I probably wouldn't have paid it, but in theory it would not have been offensive. What bugged me was the suggestions that parts of the website were sooooo special and soooooo fabulous that not everyone was worthy to read them unless they proved their worthiness by paying.

I tend to think of myself as 'specially fabulous but I don't need to pay to prove it, thankyouverymuch.

So for months I'd look at that stupid red "Times Select" button and quietly seethe.

But the Times just recently abandoned their stupid little buttons. I forget why. Perhaps because they realized they earn their website money from ad revenue just like everybody else. Maybe it's because hardly anyone was clicking on those little buttons yet the editorials were still getting out there. [People silly enough to pay were doubtless emailing columns to friends. Folks could still pick up the print copy of the Times, for free, in a coffee shop and reading whatever they wanted].

Maybe, just maybe, people like Mo and Paul and Dave saw a significant drop off in their mail and went to their editors and said, "Hey! No one is reading us anymore".

I don't know. I don't care. I just needed something to write about this morning that didn't have anything to do with the 10+ and still counting hours I've spent on the school directory. But I'm glad the NY Times got rid of those silly little buttons because it meant that I could enjoy this with my morning coffee.