No More Newsprint For Me: Harry cancels his NY Times subscription

by Actual News Geezer | July 19, 2007 at 11:22 am

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Harry McCracken is an influential guy. For one thing, he's the editor-in-chief of PC World, one of the most influential tech mags around.

For another thing, he's a pretty astute commentator on the tech scene himself, so when Harry spouts off that he's cancelling his subscription to the New York Times on account "I was paying for stuff I'd already gotten for free, and killing trees in the process," people will take notice.

Harry feels badly about screwing the Gray Lady - his employer also kills a lot of trees so he realizes the contradiction. But if The Times wants to turn itself into a charity, he's ready to pony up:

By the time I wended my way downstairs to get the paper on Sundays, I'd usually done a ton of news reading online, including at the Times' own site. By paying for the paper, I was paying for stuff I'd already gotten for free, and killing trees in the process.

I do feel kinda guilty about this. I'm certainly keenly aware that it takes lots of money to do great journalism, and that subscribing to the print edition does more to pay for the Times' excellence than reading it online does. So maybe I'll cough up the $50 a year to become a Times Select member; whether or not I take advantage of any of the benefits that confers upon me, at least it'll make me feel better.

And hey, if the Times ever went the PBS route and asked for pledges from its Web readers, I'd pony up every year. Seriously.

This comes fast on the heels of a story I posted yesterday (Newspaper Downturn Goes From Bad to Worse), and Harry is certainly not making things any easier.