It is election season (or any regular day, really), and you get tired of all the articles that fade out to white and read: “Subscribe for the full story!” You search for an explanation behind this and stumble across something by The Atlantic titled “Democracy Dies Behind Paywalls.” You click. You read. You scroll. You read and you stop scrolling, only to see that same white fade-out and a big red button that encourages you to sign up for whatever news outlet the article is published in. It’s frustrating to see the paywalls that block access to journals, but at the same time, you can’t help but wonder: Why are they there in the first place? Is paywalling truly important for the journal, or is it just a nuisance to deter you from good journalism?
What is a paywall, anyway? This term started circulating around the mid-2000s, and it refers to a system that prevents its users from accessing its content by requiring a paid subscription. Literally, it’s a digital wall that blocks you from information via money. The intent is understandable — news outlets need a budget to run their platform, but it has become excessive in recent years. For example, the Atlantic article had multiple steps to get to the full story. First, it asked me to sign in and make an account. Sounds simple enough, right? However, after I signed in, it required a paid subscription. They don’t even give the option of having your first article for free.
There is some explanation for the strict paywalls. Generating revenue solely based on ads did not work for most sites, and the shift from print to digital news helped them figure out subscriptions work better for modern audiences. In addition, paywalls allow news outlets to operate on their own funding instead of relying on external sources and internet traffic. This method helps news institutions avoid accepting ads that might conflict with their ethics or certain political groups that want to influence them.
More recently, a new concern has arisen with paywalling reliable news sources. Extremist political sites, like Breitbart, the Daily Wire and the Federalist, often make their platforms free and reachable to anyone, which can lead to a spread of a certain narrative. Furthermore, as social media also becomes a platform for circulating both news and sensationalism, it can be hard to discern clickbait from real-life events. As prominent social media platforms such as Instagram take away their fact-checkers, people become more susceptible to reading or seeing posts that include false information and sensationalist headlines.
Some universities and higher institutions have tried giving their students resources to fight this phenomenon. For example, Tech gives its students a free subscription to the Wall Street Journal, as well as several academic journal sites through the Georgia Tech Library’s database. Our very own Technique is 100% free of charge and accessible to everyone on the internet. Still, these methods of providing access to journalism are tied to someone’s student status; if you don’t belong to some organization, you’re most likely paying out-of-pocket for subscriptions.
The right to know is an important part of what makes a country, especially the United States, a democracy. However, when journalism is underfunded and discarded in favor of “innovation,” no one will know that innovation even happened. Paywalling journalism dooms the most crucial information to circle around the hands of academics and the few elite. While these journals mean well — they need to be funded to pay their staff, after all — their paywalls inadvertently decrease access for those who cannot afford to pay their subscription, contributing to a disparity in knowledge between those who can and cannot afford to buy information.
For everyone to be able to get information, major journals need to create alternative methods to make revenue. We as a society need to care more about journalism and writers in order to push for more funding for high-quality journals. It’s easy to want to not care about any of this or even block out news because of constant negativity, but true progress comes from the minds of many. If paywalling continues, the ones who truly need to stay informed will not have any sources to rely on.
The AP, NPR and PBS are great sources who haven’t paywalled their articles. Local news, such as the Technique, can also be very informative, especially regarding your community and your surroundings.