1 Years ago I cancelled my free nytimes.com account & paid for a subscription to wsj.com - it was worth it.

2 Full disclosure, I work in the online newspaper industry.  The recent shift to paid content that the papers are trying out is just plain old dumb.  It's a dinosaur model based on the print product.  "We charge for the paper product, so it makes sense to charge for the online product.  After all, we wouldn't want to compete with our print content."

What they don't seem to understand is, even if THEY don't compete with their print content, everyone else on the internet does.  Realistically, you can charge for content if your content is:
a) high demand (i.e. porn.  folks will pay for nekkid pictures)
b) unique (if you can't get that content anywhere else, folks will pay for it, e.g. NFL livestreaming games)
c) if all your competitors are charging for it (premium cable channels work like this, but I can't think of a single example on the internet)

What the newspapers fail to realize is no one NEEDS to go to them for the content.  What news does the NYT put out that you can't get from CNN or Fox or MSNBC or any other news source?  For free?  If you hit a registration wall at NYT or LA Times, you can just go somewhere else and get the same news.

"But the WSJ has paid content, doesn't that prove you're wrong?"  Not at all.  What you're paying for at WSJonline is NOT the news content, but the editorial content.  Which, I will point out, is both right leaning AND high demand.  Nationally, people subscribe to the WSJ less for the news content (though that does occur amongst industry insiders on Wall Street) for that editorial content.  You cannot get those editorials any other way (they're not nationally syndicated).  Right now, the NYT (as well as the LA Times, and just about every other national paper) is very hard left leaning.  And just as left-wing radio doesn't work, neither does national left wing editorializing.

Sure, back when printed newspapers were the major source for news content, people would nationally subscribe to national newspapers.  It's why USA Today even exists.  But they're getting murdered by the 24 hour newscycle.  A print product cannot compete with a cable network or the internet.  To make matters worse, rather than post stories to the internet like a TV station would (breaking news is their bread and butter), the newspaper industry is bound hand and foot to their production cycle.  I've had publishers scream bloody murder when we've put up time sensitive content for their sites because we "scooped their story" before the print edition went out.  "Who wants to buy a newspaper when they already read it online!"  That's their frequent complaint.  What they fail to realize is that folks will get that news somewhere before the print product is off the press.  If they're not getting it from your website, they WILL get it elsewhere and now you've not only failed to sell that paper, but you've also lost that customer to another website.

For internet news, there is exactly one workable revenue stream.  It's the banner/popup/interstitial ad that you (as a user) suffer through for all of 10-20 seconds before watching that video you want, or get that webpage to come up.  Users WILL tolerate a 10-20 second waste of their time, and some of them might even give a damn about the ad.  There's actually money to be made there, it's how TV and radio have ALWAYS made their money.  But the newspaper industry is too hidebound to see it.  They can only think in their old school terms, and it will bring them to their end even faster than is currently happening.