What the pandemic means for paywalls
A year ago this month, major publications across the United States partially or completely lowered their paywalls. The idea was that information about the outbreak of covid-19 had life-saving potential, and so it should be available to everyone, not just to subscribers a fraction of news readers who tend to be the wealthiest and most highly-educated. Lowering paywalls was ethically sound. But it now raises important questions for media outlets: How long can they afford to keep their journalism free? And how will they determine which reporting is “essential” to the public?
“Journalism is, at its core, a public service,” Joy Mayer, the director of Trusting News, a research and training project that promotes journalistic credibility, said. But for any newsroom with a paywall, “There is always going to be tension between financial sustainability and the desire to offer that service in a way that is accessible to everyone.” Motives i