ArtsJournal has traditionally not linked to stories behind hard paywalls like the Wall Street Journal because our readers can’t see them unless they pay. We have, however, linked to stories behind “soft” paywalls such as the New York Times, LA Times and others. On these sites you can access stories until you reach the limit. And even then, by using different browsers or computers you can often get around the paywalls.
BUT: An increasing number of news sites are now going to the paid subscriber paywall model. And a growing number of ArtsJournal readers are getting frustrated clicking through to stories they can’t see unless they pay. Alas, we can’t do anything about that (we’ve tried…. really).
So we want to get a sense of the audience. We have always considered AJ to be a curated survey of stories you should know about. We find that the average reader scans the stories, clicking through to about 20 percent of the links to read the whole story. Thus the headlines are a good “scan” of what’s out there, whether or not you click through to the story.
If you come to the website or subscribe to the premium newsletter, you also get a short description of the story – so a little more information about the story so you can decide whether to click.
So: A few questions to help us understand how we should think about paywalls. Thanks so much for helping.
 – Doug McLennan, Editor
This is a survey of 30,000 subscribers to ArtsJournal’s free newsletters, which offers headlines to stories. If you want to see fuller descriptions, visit the website (also free) here. You can subscribe to the premium newsletter here ($28/year) and get the headlines plus descriptions. [sample here]