• Sunanda Creagh

Image: World Economic Forum / flickr

20 June 2011Is it too early to tell if a pay wall system can save newspapers in Australia? asks Sunanda Creagh in The Conversation.

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Media giant News Limited will charge for online access to its broadsheet paper The Australian after October and for certain parts of the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun after that, the company has announced.

Debate has raged across the newspaper industry about how best to cope with a readership that is drifting away from the traditional newspaper-read-over-breakfast model toward a habit of reading news online for free.

Some have argued that paying for online access is the only way to survive, while others are adamant that pay walls drive down circulation and make newspapers less attractive to advertisers.

News will adopt a Wall Street Journal-style ‘freemium’ model for the three newspapers, under which general news will remain free but premium content — such as investigative journalism, work by specialist writers and certain columnists — will be locked behind a pay wall.

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Photo: World Economic Forum / flickr