Chief of Police of Malibu

So the idea of having to pay for media content definitely annoyed me when I first heard the New York Times was going to start charging to read its columnists over the internet.  After all, news on the internet has always been free!  And there are lots of other free venues out there.  However, after talking to a friend of mine, who actually worked for a time on the New York Times web division, I realized that newspapers like the New York Times have been really suffering from the competition of free news over the internet, and from cable (drivel) news.  However, they are still some of the best sources of really well-informed journalism and sophisticated thinking in the media universe.  And in fact, it would be a real shame if the wonderful advent of the internet led to the downfall or hollowing-out of some of the best news organizations in the country.  Something like this already happened at the LA Times, which had to fire a large proportion of its newsroom staff sometime last year.  So I decided that while I would like to read my news & opinion stuff for free, if I really wanted high-quality journalism, I should be willing to pay for it.  So I’m willing to pay the New York Times the $40/yr to read their columnists.  I especially could not get by without Paul Krugman, who I think provides more actual information in his columns than anyone else, and whom a lot of people whose grasp of economics is only basic could really advance their understanding of how the economy works by reading.

That said, I’ll get to my first Reaction, to a column by John Tierney about Estonia (which I’ve visited–I wonder if Tierney has?)