Why the Times needs to be less Select(ive)...and more inclusive

Tim Porter makes a strong case in defense of the Times Select program to monetize the NYT's popular columnists after PBS's Mark Glaser called for its end, but ultimately, I think he's wrong. As a former newspaperman, I can empathize with the desire to get paid for the value you provide your readers. (And here Porter is right to point out that commodity news should be free). But you don't have to drink the Koolaid to believe that the Web is truly disruptive.

How so?

Not long ago, the measure of a columnist's authority was where they were published. Simply put, as smart as they are and hard as they worked to get there, readers understood that columnists were worth paying attention to because they were in the Times. But it's also true that not that long ago there was little or no direct interaction between a columnist and his audience. Before e-mail, letters to the editor ran several days after the fact and, as such, were largely moot points. Discussion of their work was mostly limited to the office water cooler.

And now?

Authority comes not from being exclusive, but from being ubiquitous, from being linkable, from being part of the frey. How else to explain the rise of political blogs like Daily Kos and Instapundit. To many of their readers, their opinion matters as much or more than Dowd, Friedman et. al. But of course, the Times is still the Times and Maureen Dowd is worth paying for. So that's why the Times is making a nice piece of change on the move. That's the problem. It's so profitable that it will be hard for them to go back even when it becomes painfully obvious that Times columnists are not leading national discussions the way they were pre-Times Select. I fear it's already getting there.

And lets not forget...when you read the rest of the Times or any similar site, the news is not "free." It comes at the cost of your attention which is sold in the form of ads.