Last week, I noted the Star Tribune wasn’t among the 506 sites signing up for media mogul Steve Brill’s venture to create a common paywall for the globe’s publishers.
Turns out the Pioneer Press isn’t part of it, either. David Bessen — the chief information officer for Pioneer Press parent MediaNews Group, and the executive heading up MNG’s Payment Walls Task Force — says, “At this point, we have spoken with Journalism Online, but have not made any decisions about engaging with them.”
MediaNews is deeply committed to charging for content, somehow. If you want to read a take on why paywalls won’t work, advocating an alternative method that boosts online ad revenue by getting you to disgorge demographic data, see Alan Mutter’s three-part series here (especially the last part).
