NYT to take down its pay wall for three days [View all]

[The Blue Flower]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/reader-center/world-press-freedom-day.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage

What if no one were watching?
We are living at a moment in history when democratic values are under threat by authoritarian leaders. The internet, which holds such promise as a democratizing force, has been co-opted by people peddling divisive, hateful ideologies. Citizens around the world who want to speak out are under siege from their own governments.

Imagine if no one were watching.

Imagine if The Times were not able to report from Venezuela. The government there has tried to keep us out and has attacked our correspondents for their reporting because there is something it doesn’t want you to know: Infants in Venezuela are dying of malnutrition.

Imagine if we were not in Yemen, where a Saudi-led military coalition has prompted the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

Imagine if we were not at the fence between Israel and Gaza as troops faced thousands of protesters hoping to crash through.
Imagine if we were not in Mexico to reveal how the previous government used advanced spyware to attack and undermine civil society.

Every day, journalists at The Times and other mission-driven, independent news organizations around the world work hard to hold the powerful to account. To celebrate their work and press freedom, The Times is taking down its paywall from May 3 to 5 so everyone who registers can browse as many articles as they like.

As you read today’s news, or some of the remarkable stories I mention here, consider: What if no one were watching?

Patrick Kingsley, a correspondent based in Berlin, may never have documented how the leader of Hungary is dismantling the democratic state. Declan Walsh and Tyler Hicks may have been unable to make the world pay attention to starvation in Yemen. Michael Schwirtz’s eye-opening story about a Russian assassin and a president who never forgets a grievance may have never seen the light of day.

When a dam burst in Brazil and buried more than 150 people in a tsunami of mud, The Times was there to ask who was responsible. When Grenfell Tower burned in London, killing 71 people, we revealed the lack of oversight and failed regulations that left tenants vulnerable.

Does any of this matter?
The siding that caused Grenfell to burn like a Roman candle was outlawed soon after our report. When our Southeast Asia bureau chief, Hannah Beech, wrote about an 11-year-old Malaysian girl married to a Thai man 30 years her senior, the outcry led the Thai government to bring her home. Ten days after Norimitsu Onishi and Selam Gebrekidan reported from South Africa that two children had drowned in the rudimentary latrines dug into the ground at their schools, the president announced a program to tackle the issue.

We are not patting ourselves on the back. These days, in fact, we may be closer to wringing our hands.

These reporters and their colleagues from publications like The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post often take great personal risk to bring you such stories, especially in this age of the strongman. Authoritarian leaders who once feared backlash from Washington if they went after American reporters now seem to be under the impression that they may get only a slap on the wrist — or even a nod and a wink.

Beyond a ‘Paper of Record’
For decades, The Times made a point of chronicling events big and small. Ships arriving in New York Harbor. Less-than-earthshaking resolutions at the United Nations. We were known, after all, as “the Newspaper of Record.”

We do less of that now.

History has taken to recording itself. Ship movements, United Nations resolutions and presidential speeches are all available to the curious with just a few keystrokes. So are the deep and passing thoughts of virtually every celebrity, to say nothing of those who aren’t celebrities at all — or weren’t until they blew up on social media.

And all that with no need to buy a newspaper.

Yet in a world awash in information, bearing personal witness has become even more important. That is why World Press Freedom Day resonates this year, perhaps more than in the past.

And that is why we are taking down The Times’s paywall for three days. We believe in what we do, and we think you will, too.

A note to readers who are not subscribers: This article from the Reader Center does not count toward your monthly free article limit.

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