“Thieves, adolescents, and jobless”

March 24, 2011

Slate's Jack Shafer reports on how NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger sees readers who try to get around the paper's pay fence and read for free:

Can people go around the system? The answer is yes, just as if you run down Sixth Avenue right now and you pass a newsstand and you grab a newspaper and keep running, you can read the Times for free. …

Is [jumping over the pay wall] going to be done by the kind of people who value the quality of the New York Times reporting and opinion and analysis? No. … I don't think so. It'll be mostly high-school kids and people who are out of work.

Because there has to be something wrong with you if you can't afford to support quality journalism at these prices.