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Go Home Welcome to the TNR Society

APRIL 7, 2010

Welcome to the TNR Society

BY FRANKLIN FOER

Does content want to be free? That question about the basic economic model of Internet publishing has tormented journalism for years now. And if you read the media about media, we’re due for another turn in this great debate. The New York Times will soon start charging for online access. Conde Nast hopes the seductive powers of the iPad will revivify the circulation of its glossies, gifting them a new platform for charging readers.

Recently we’ve been mulling this same basic strategic tact, and, in fact, it has a long history at TNR. For about the last seven years, we’ve offered digital subscriptions—and, at varying times, housed significant swaths of our content behind a pay wall. In recent years, however, we have removed most of those obstacles, opening our articles to non-subscribers. The ethos of the blogosphere is, after all, wonderfully democratic. What writer or editor doesn’t want her work read and debated as widely as possible? For a little magazine like ours, the Internet has extended our reach far beyond anything reasonably achievable in the old era when we relied solely on the postal service and newsstands as intermediaries for distributing our magazine. There’s an old joke from the sixties that TNR subscribers couldn’t fill the Ole Miss football stadium. But thanks to the web, our weekly readers would now fill those stands several times over.

Yet for all the advantages that this free distribution offers, there are inherent problems with it. There is, of course, something somewhat arbitrary about giving away our journalism online, when we charge our readers for it in print. Yes, the web eliminates many production costs—there are no dead trees, printing presses, and so on. But that only removes a fraction of the dollars that go into making our magazine.

And there’s also a deeper philosophical question: We charge our subscribers for our print journalism, because these are pieces that often require many months of reporting, writing, and editing. This style of journalism hasn’t exactly flourished in recent years, but it is at the core of our enterprise—and the reason many of us work at TNR. If we are so willing to place a price tag on such journalism in print, then why would we give it away in some other medium?

We don’t have a good answer to that question. That’s the reason that we’re introducing the TNR Society. To read our “premium” content—namely, our print pieces and the bulk of our 96 years of archives—you’ll need a subscription. (You’ll know that an article on the homepage requires a subscription by the little TNR ship next to it.) Click here for a more detailed account of the deals we’re offering and how this works.

And click here to subscribe.

I don’t want to overstate these changes. Plenty on the TNR website will remain gratis. In fact, the TNR Society won’t affect the bulk of what we produce on any given day. All visitors to TNR will have unfettered access to the entirety of our blogs and our web-only columns, as well as The Book. Inevitably, there will be kinks in our transition to this new plan—we know ourselves well—and we’ll surely continue to experiment and tweak the way this all works. But our commitment to long-form magazine journalism is deep and unchanging. We hope you view this change the same way we do: as an affirmation of that commitment, regardless of the medium in which we publish.

Franklin Foer is the editor of The New Republic.

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15 comments

Amen. As a 21 year old college student, I read all of my TNR online. The print version invariably arrives on my doorstep after I have read most of what is contained inside. I subscribe and will continue to do so, for the simple reason that I understand the crushing financial straints TNR is operating under and want to make my contribution. Use it well.

- jnordlander

April 7, 2010 at 12:47am

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I hope this change is accompanied by a fixing of the print view of articles so they require something less than one tree to print each article. And there is also the problem of overly aggressive logouts.

- ndmackenzie

April 7, 2010 at 2:14am

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Mac, I can't recall any instance in which I agreed with you in the past, but in this case I'm with you 100%. There are some other bugs on the web site that could stand fixing as well. hg

- ginzy

April 7, 2010 at 2:39am

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I live in Europe, so getting the hard copy in the mail is impractical--far too slow and too expensive. Will my e-subscription provide full access? And will there be the same login glitches as in the case of other changes? Inquiring minds want to know...

- Robert Powell

April 7, 2010 at 4:07am

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I usually wait (a long time here in Europe) for the print version, so I am pleased that it will now be more obvious which articles I don't need to read online.

- neitwin

April 7, 2010 at 5:37am

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Mr. Powell, My situation is similar to yours, living in Israel (as I suspect you know). I have an online-only subscription. I spoke to the subscription service department last night who told me that I still should be able to have access to the full regular web site, at least regarding premium articles, access to the full e-version of each newly published issue etc. I don't know if that includes access to the archive & searching the archive. Obviously it does include being able to post feedback comments. hg

- ginzy

April 7, 2010 at 9:16am

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May this business model work well for TNR. I still like the portability and tactile of print. Might want to start moderating the comments on the TNR blogs.

- K2K

April 7, 2010 at 9:24am

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I second the approval of the symbol to indicate which pieces will be in the print version. TNR is key subway reading for me so I have kept the print subscription anyway. This way I can spend less time reading those articles on line when I should be working...

- shellski

April 7, 2010 at 10:38am

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2 years ago I was a TNR print subscriber. I loved the magazine but when the time came to renew I was faced with a difficult decision. Could I really justify spending the money to waste paper when most of the articles were offered for free online? Being the eco-conscious citizen that I am, I opted not to renew. I regretted this decision twice a month and as of two days ago I am a proud resubscriber to the print edition (and with it a TNR Society member) for the next two years. Keep up the great work TNR.

- amanfed

April 7, 2010 at 12:18pm

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A good change, for the right reasons. Neil

- purcellneil

April 7, 2010 at 4:25pm

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I originally subscribed because I wanted to read the content that was behind the previous subscriber wall (I was never a print subscriber). I have stayed one because I valued the content, even once I did not have to pay for it. Here's hoping this change encourages others to do the same, and that the strategy works.

- Nari224

April 7, 2010 at 4:44pm

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Except that my electronic subscription apparently will allow me to comment on the premium articles, but not read them in full, e.g. Scoblic's nuclear piece.

- Nari224

April 7, 2010 at 6:13pm

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Conversion! I signed up for a year of print/online.

- MikePlant

April 8, 2010 at 1:25pm

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I was out of town last week and had to read TNR off my iPhone. Tricky, but ok during a slow news week. A bit of Irony when I clicked on the TNR Advertisement for reading TNR on my iPhone and the link would not open up. A little bit of the typical TNR Technical Glitches that we are familair with. I recently saw that TNR opened up the archives again last month and spent a few days re-reading some of my favorites. My favorite TNR Archive find was the Robert Brustein review of Catch-22 when that novel was published in 1961. I have been thinking that Catch-22 is the most influential and significant novel from 1950-2000. Brustein's review is so well written it exemplifies what TNR is all about. TNR was about the only Magazine to recognize the brilliance of Catch-22 when it came out. Again typical of TNR. I also found out that Michael Crichton wrote the Book Review for Slaughterhouse 5 which was a little hard to read and not so insightful. I reread Collector's Item from Joseph Broadsky which I think is the best piece TNR ever published, but their is a lot of competition. Thanks for improving the Digital Side of things here at TNR. I think I'll drop the $ 4.99 on the iPhone App, even though I can get most of this with my subscription already. I think I just want everything TNR. I hope the digital transition goes well for TNR. Everyone loves TNR, some people just don't know it yet.

- CRS9TNR

April 10, 2010 at 11:10am

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Dear Frank, We subscribers love to pay for on-line content. (And I have for years.) But we'll never forgive you if you don't do the World Cup blog again. Thanks. Scott Denham

- scdenham

June 2, 2010 at 9:31am

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