The Wyoming Tribune Eagle, the state’s second largest daily newspaper, is the latest newspaper to put up a metered paywall. Readers can access 10 free digital articles per month on WyomingNews.com, but must register after the fifth to get the remaining five articles. Prior to the change, online content was free, but in a condensed format. Now everything available in the print edition is also available online. Yesterday publisher Scott Walker explained the switch to readers:

“To protect that content, which we spend nearly $1 million a year creating, we have to erect a metered, or soft, paywall. Under this model, we will still allow non-subscribers to access 10 free articles a month, but we require a simple registration after the fifth article.

Some content dealing with public safety, like winter road conditions or closures, will always be free, no matter how many articles you have accessed. Finally, some content, like the police blotters, will be behind a hard paywall. Only subscribers will have access to this content, no matter your free article content.

This decision was not something we arrived at lightly. We had always planned to make the transition to a paywall within the first month of the new website, but technical issues slowed us down. Because of that, the community received, essentially, three months of free content, which we felt doubled as a free trial period,” Walker said.

For $10 a month, print subscribers will get full access to WyomingNews.com and the e-Edition, a PDF version of the paper for tablets and mobile devices. For those who want a digital-only subscription, the cost is $95 a year if paid annually, or $10.50 per month ($126) if paid monthly. In response to readers who have said news should be free, Walker responded bluntly:

“Do we cry foul when the phone companies charge us to keep in touch with friends and family? Do we object to having to pay for fuel for our vehicles so we can go see them?

Again, there is a cost to collecting and distributing news. This is not a community service. If we do not make money through advertising and subscriptions, there will be no news for you to read.

As you know, the print newspaper never has been free, and there is a reason for that – it funds our operations. Your subscriptions barely cover the costs of delivery to your homes; the advertisers pay the rest,” added Walker.

The change comes about six months after a change in ownership. In October 2015, APG Media of the Rockies purchased the Wyoming Tribune Eagle from the McCraken family who had owned the Eagle since 1926 and the Tribune since 1937. So far, there have only been four comments on Walker’s paywall explanation, and all were negative, and two pointed out that the paywall article was behind the paywall.

Insider Take:

Many major metro newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post have already moved to a paywall, whether metered or a hard paywall. Smaller, local papers have been slower to follow suit, but as print revenues continue to decline, this trend will continue. At some point, news will no longer be free.

As a publisher, we completely understand this perspective, and appreciate that media organizations must cover their costs. In many cases, that will mean a paywall of some kind. In others, it will be a hybrid of different revenue streams, similar to what the Winnipeg Free Press has done, offering a metered paywall, subscription options, and micropayments for pay-as-you-go news consumption for the occasional readers.

What we would have done differently than the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, however, is taken a less defensive approach than Walker. His column would have been a good opportunity to explain to readers the need for the paywall, how they need and appreciate local support, especially from subscribers, and how they believe their product is worth paying for.

Some readers will never want to pay for news, and we won’t be able to convince them otherwise. That’s a reality we have to accept. What we can do is help others understand why the business model is changing and why our particular product is valuable.

We can also give them options, so loyal readers will see the value in their subscription and casual readers clearly understand that there are limits to the amount of information we will share for free. If handled the right way, the move to a paywall doesn’t have to be painful. It can be an opportunity to connect with readers.