The Times doesn't need to defend its decision to charge for access. The Web site, and the content, belong to it and it has a right to control access in any way it likes.

I just shan't be reading it any more. (With, as some other readers have pointed out, beneficial effects on my mental health).

There may be good, hard-working journalists somewhere, but not in the news business these days.
When the front page of news magazines devotes all of its space to discussing the finer points of the economic situation and relegates sports news permanently to the 7th-page sports section, then we might have better journalism.
Until that day, we will have to content ourselves with the current "bread and games" journalism we have today.
And I'm not paying a cent for that.

The news media has become so biased, scaremongering, inaccurate, and lying that its product can be called: misinformation. Now who wants to pay for misinformation? That's like buying rotting vegetables!

Their was a time when one had a choice (competition) to view the news as it was happening, with a view point that could be compared with other news view points. The news now comes in a canned form that is spoon fed and doctored up and controlled by just a few powerful men. We do not have that choice any more.

I'm old enough to remember 'good' journalism from the 70's and 80's. But like so many other modern products, it's been hollowed out and painted over to now 'look' like good journalism. There IS a difference.

Do these numptys not realise that broadsheets and tabloids consistently give politically motivated opinion rather than news. In a world where the flow of information has seen a paradigm shift in the space of 5 years these anachronistic media outlets have rested on their laurels and (like the movie industry) consistently failed to keep up with the times (no pun intended) I don't read these rag mags anyway so it is of no great loss to me, butthis move will only push people to point their browsers at the ostensibly free BEEB website.

It is quickly becoming obvious that newspapers and media organisations cannot survive online while giving their content away for free; just look at The Independent; it got sold the other day for £1, and it consistently puts out the best journalism around (call me a pinko, commie, liberal if you like).

So I for one welcome the advent of paid-for online news.

Having good, hard-working journalists are a vital part of culture we live in. We’d still be paying for the cleaning of our MP’s moats had it not been for some hard-working hacks.

I tell ya, you’ll miss the Fourth Estate when it’s gone.