There is an interesting debate raging on Charles Bremner’s blog about The Times’ (the UK newspaper for which Charles Bremner blogs) new pricing policy.

The Times and The Sunday Times this week began charging for access to their websites.  Readers must pay £1 for a day’s access and £2 for a week’s subscription.  It’s definitely a risky experiment, and time will tell whether readers remain loyal to the newspapers or simply glean their news elsewhere.

However you feel about the new pricing policy on traditional news content, there is one component of the policy which I submit merits serious debate.  Specifically, The Times’ pricing policy also applies to blogs, like those of Charles Bremner.  Charles Bremner is a Paris-based blogger who regularly muses about aspects of French society from an anglo-saxon perspective, thus frequently reaching my personal reading list, so this debate hits home for me.

I acknowledge that the traditional print media model is broken.  Precarious declines in revenues from both circulation and advertising have jeopardized the financial health of the entire sector.  Print media is thus migrating to the internet, yet the industry is still struggling to find the most viable business model.  I can understand Rupert Murdoch’s frustration with the likes of Google and other purveyors of free content, and I can respect News International’s (owner of The Times) need to experiment.

However, I would also contend that a blog is different than a news article, and accordingly deserves to be carved-out from an across-the-board access charge.  Some suggest that blogs offer a different (read: inferior) level of journalistic quality than a well-researched news piece.  In Charles Bremner’s instance, this is certainly not the case.  Bremner, a former correspondent for The Times, ranks right up there among the best professional journalists.

For me, the key distinction a blog offers over a news article is its interactive element.  A blog is a platform that facilitates the exchange of ideas and points of view in response to a topic broached by the blogger.  The Comments section of a blog represents the richness of the exchange.  While the initial blog post is a skeleton, the collective comments from the blog’s readers are the meat on the bones.

Limiting the free flow of interaction on a blog stifles creativity, and in the long run, probably does not make economic sense.

As one reader of Bremner’s blog dryly observes, if The Times is charging for access to a blog, then one could argue that the readers who comment on the blog should also charge a fee.

In homage to Bremner’s readership, and in humble acknowledgement to Charles Bremner that I don’t possess a fraction of his journalistic prowess, I can assure my readers that this blog will not be ensconced by any paywall !

P.S. for those of you willing to pay to read it (and I submit that it’s worth it), you can find Charles Bremner’s blog here.