The New York Times created “TimeSelect" a few months back, cutting off access to its major columnists to all but those who will pay for the privilege of reading the shrill shriekings of Krugman and Dowd and the rest.

But now they’ve gone further – they have even cut off email access to all but those willing to pay for the privilege of communicating with their columnists.

The Times is refusing to allow email from non-subscribers to its star columnists. ThatÂ’s right, you have to pay in order to be able to respond directly to the bloviators. Editor & Publisher reports:

If you havenÂ’t signed up for TimesSelect, The New York TimesÂ’ online subscription product, donÂ’t bother e-mailing the paperÂ’s star columnists.

Since the Times put the words of its eight Op-Ed columnists behind a paid wall last September, it has also decided that only TimesSelect subscribers should be allowed to e-mail Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, et al.

Back in September the Times asked the hundreds of papers who publish the Op-Ed contributors through The New York Times News Service (NYTNS) to stop printing the writersÂ’ e-mail addresses with the columns (and to take the columns off their Web sites, too). Apparently not everyone got the message, because last week the TimesÂ’ syndication service sent out an advisory reminding its client papers to remove the e-mail addresses.

“If you are not a TimesSelect subscriber you won’t have access to that e-mail functionality,” Times spokesman Toby Usnik confirmed Tuesday. “It centralizes [the columnists’ e-mails] around the TimesSelect site.”

But instead of being able to put an address in a mail program and firing it off at your leisure, TimesSelect subscribers now have to fill out an online form similar to the generic feedback forms found on many Web sites.

The free exchange of ideas seems oddly frightening to the Old Grey Lady these days. Considering the ideas they are peddling, thatÂ’s actually quite understandable.

Why would anyone really want to write to Maureen Dowd, anyway?

Posted by: Greg at 01:59 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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