I want my Scowcroft!

It’s obviously up to Condé Nast whether or not to make all New Yorker content freely available on the Web. But it borders on the abusive not to at least set up a password-protected system for those of us who subscribe to the print edition. The Atlantic Monthly and The New Republic don’t seem to have any problem doing that.

This is especially frustrating when the New Yorker has some hot content – as it does this week, in the form of Jeffrey Goldberg’s interview with Brent Scowcroft, the Bush I national-security adviser turned Bush II Cheney-basher.

Uh, Mr. Newhouse, sir, it’s Wednesday, and my mail-carrier still hasn’t delivered this week’s issue. Could I at least read it online? Please?

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6 thoughts on “I want my Scowcroft!”

  1. segueing from post below, Mark apparently has adapted well to papers that are given away. His blog has a link to bypass the subscribers-only gateway at WSJ Online. Think they have embraced the free model as much as the Phoenix?

  2. Some of the WSJ has been available on-line, at least since last year when I started paying attention.

  3. All I know is, if I try to go through the front door of WSJ Online, I am told the material is reserved for subscribers. I realize there is free content, this just isn’t part of it. Taranto’s daily newsletter includes the free stuff. Stuff like the piece in question is in the other part they want you to pay for. Is this a big deal? No, just a little ironic that at a time when every journo in the country is agonizing over being made obsolete by the web, paid content is being given away by the blog of a largely free newspaper. Not to inject editorial slants but perhaps Mark didn’t think the WSJ stuff was worth anyone paying for?

  4. If you’re a WSJ.com subscriber, and you e-mail an article to yourself, you get a free link that’s good for something like a week that you can use in your blog. Romenesko has been doing this for a few years, and has told me that the WSJ has never complained. I’ve done it a few times, too. Think of it as light copy-protection – the WSJ doesn’t mind as long as it doesn’t get out of hand, because it’s promotion for its content.

  5. Wouldn’t you know it, the former head of Advance Publications’ Internet arm, Advance.net, has a web-log where he interacts with his readers. So back in February I asked him whether the New Yorker was going to improve its online site. Well, he responded, this was not the proper forum for it, and he wasn’t involved in the ongoing management. And he has since moved on to other pastures.So, we wait; maybe the new head of Advance.Net may be amenable to such a suggestion.

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