I Hate Newspaper Paywalls

But good journalism costs money

The only newspapers I have subscriptions to are the Baltimore Sun and the Wall Street Journal. I can only really afford to be shelling out money to one newspaper, and that is the Baltimore Sun. Local news is more important to me than national these days, and I like to be as informed about what’s going on around me than about what’s going on across the country.

As for the Wall Street Journal, I guess it’s an alright newspaper to read. But I don’t pay for it (not directly). It’s a supplementary perk to me as a Johns Hopkins University graduate student. I joke frequently with my friends that now, I’m an archconservative who thumbs my nose at poor people. It’s obviously not true, but I never understood why every article, even those unrelated to stocks, needed to have stock prices headlined on every article. It’s a little nitpicky on my end, but I find it personally off-putting. If I’m reading an op-ed about Amazon unionization, why do I care about the price of the Dow Jones?

I wish the perks of my Master’s Program gave me access to another newspaper. I have the utmost respect for the Wall Street Journal but I don’t follow their columnists like I do Nicholas Kristof, David Brooks, Charles Blow or Maureen Dowd at the New York Times. The stock price issue is very minor in comparison to the fact that I’ve been reading the New York Times my whole life. I don’t read the Washington Post that much, but one of my best friends and I share an account whenever I really want to read something.

So why does it cause me so much pain when a newspaper paywall pops up? I love journalists. I respect journalists. I want journalists to get paid. I want a vibrant press that afflicts the comfortable and speaks truth to power. In another life, I would have become a journalist…

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