Online newspapers have tread warily around the question of charging for their content. Let’s face it, gathering and disseminating the news is a pricey business. It needs to generate enough revenue to cover costs, and a little profit to boot. But online sites don’t generate much revenue (or so we're told), a situation made untenable by the continuing erosion of the readership of print versions. The opting of charging for access is tempting, if it weren’t for users. You need them for the traffic that generates the paltry ad revenues now being received. Charge them for access and they may stay or, more likely, they may leave, taking with them what little revenue they generated.

The New York Times has taken the bold step of saying it will start charging users of its online site. Not right away, mind you, but in 2011. And not everyone, just those who are frequent readers (and who don’t subscribe to the print edition). It’s a plan, that’s for sure. And it does take some courage to venture into waters yet untested.

But what about the details? That’s the interesting bit. According to the Times, besides the 2011 start date all other terms are up in the air. What’s a “frequent reader”? The Times won’t say. How much will it charge? The Times doesn’t know. According to company chair and publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., “This announcement allows us to begin the thought process that’s going to answer so many of the questions that we all care about.” In other words, we aren’t venturing, just yet, in to waters untested, but rather are dipping in a big toe to see how cold those waters might be.

The Times considers highly the work it does. According to Bill Keller, the executive editor, “It underscores the value of what we do — trustworthy, aggressively reported professional journalism, which is an increasingly rare and precious thing.” One wonders if the current users of the Times online place as much value on the Times’ “increasingly rare and precious thing” as does the Times.