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The Online Journalism Review's Mark Glaser tries to make sense of the L.A. Times putting content from Calendar behind the pay-for-access wall. It was done mainly to create new incentives to subscribe to the paper, but are the Times listings and coverage truly premium content? Not to David Poland of The Hot Button:
"It is a huge gift to The New York Times, which immediately becomes the unchallenged No. 1 newspaper in movie coverage on a national basis...my little voice about movies is suddenly louder than this massive paper...The L.A. Times is replaceable."
Times media critic David Shaw laments the diminished reach of his column in Sunday Calendar, but he's philosophic about it.
"On the other hand, when I've written books, I haven't suggested that the publisher give them away to maximize my audience. I do think that, sooner or later, all news organizations will have to charge for online content or find another way to finance it."
The wall apparently blocks anything that runs in the print Calendar sections: feature stories, culture stories, even letters to the editor and the edited-down Liz Smith column, available in longer form at the New York Post.