New York Times columnists: $50 for their thoughts

I doubt that this will work very well.

NYT.com to charge for Op-Ed, other content as of Sept (NYT) By Carolyn Pritchard

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The New York Times Co. (NYT) on Monday said that, starting in September, access to Op-Ed and certain of its top news columnists on the paper's NYTimes.com Web site will only be available through a fee of $49.95 a year. The service, known as TimesSelect, will also allow access to The Times's online archives, early access to select articles on the site, and other features. Home-delivery subscribers will automatically receive the service, the NYT said.

Most of us have come to view free news and opinion content on the Internet as a God-given right. Also, the columns of Friedman, Brooks, Krugman, et al all appear in other newspapers a day or two after they are in the Times. I think that most people will just learn to wait or, even worse for the Times, stop caring what its op-ed contributors have to say.