Your Scandal’s Safe
Posted by Peter Himler on February 28th, 2006
As The New York Times moves to digitize its archive back to 1852 and make it freely available to TimesSelect subscribers, the New York Post has taken quite the opposite tact. The NYC tabloid has just sent all of its pre-1998 news clippings into storage purgatory in the sub-basement of its Sixth Avenue headquarters — in effect rendering them completely inaccessible.
The move was ordered by one of the paper’s digital czars who (mistakenly) felt the printed history was expendable, if not just clutter. The paper’s ink-stained reporting staff is not too pleased.
This means that the many bold-faced names who had woken up one morning to discover their ceremonious names unceremoniously splashed onto “Page Six” can breathe a sigh of relief. Their past sins — at least those prior to ‘98 — are now literally tombstoned.
March 31st, 2006 at 10:09 pm
I hate that the Times has opted to charge for some content with its special Times Select invention. Don’t they make enough money off the advertising? What if visitorship drops because people don’t want to pay — will the Times let their advertisers know?
I tried to do a search for some Maureen Dowd columns after reading her over-hyped book “Are Men Necessary?” which read like a college freshman thesis. Nothing original or thought-provoking. I didn’t even have the heart to finish it. Surely her column must be more insightful? Sadly, I’ll never know because I refuse to pay for the access.
Yeah to the Washington Post for its free access. Imagine wanting people to read your paper. What a democratic concept!