A former top Obama administration official, who once worked for TIME Magazine, said in a new paywalled op-ed that democracy depended on outlets making 2024 election coverage free this year.
Richard Stengel, an ex-TIME managing editor who also worked in the Obama State Department, wrote in The Atlantic that online paywalls "get in the way of the public being informed." His thesis was that consumers are likely to find ways around paying for news coverage and will seek out free, junky "misinformation."
"Paywalls create a two-tiered system: credible, fact-based information for people who are willing to pay for it, and murkier, less-reliable information for everyone else," he wrote. "It is a terrible time for the press to be failing at reaching people, during an election in which democracy is on the line. There’s a simple, temporary solution: Publications should suspend their paywalls for all 2024 election coverage and all information that is beneficial to voters. Democracy does not die in darkness—it dies behind paywalls."
Stengel cited the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, which found 75 percent of America’s leading news organizations require payment to read their journalism.
Moderator and Political Analyst at MSNBC, Richard Stengel speaks onstage at Day 1 of the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit 2018 at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on October 9, 2018, in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
"And how do American news consumers react to that? Almost 80 percent of Americans steer around those paywalls and seek out a free option," Stengel wrote, adding, "The problem is not just that professionally produced news is behind a wall; the problem is that paywalls increase the proportion of free and easily available stories that are actually filled with misinformation and disinformation."
Stengel didn't mention former President Trump in his piece, but his own political loyalties are clear. In addition to working for Obama, he was the Biden-Harris transition team's lead official for the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees efforts to support "freedom and democracy" in countries around the world.
His argument comes during a difficult time for digital media, as layoffs have abounded in the industry over the past few months. Stengel noted roughly a third of U.S. newspapers have ceased publishing in the past 20 years, but "disinformation" scholar Paul Barrett told Stengel that news outlets trying to profit off their work may help "fake news operations."
"It’s understandable that traditional news-gathering businesses are desperate for subscription revenue," he told me, "but they may be inadvertently boosting the fortunes of fake news operations motivated by an appetite for clicks or an ideological agenda—or a combination of the two."
Stengel said public distrust in media, a widely observed trend that's worsened steadily in the 21st century, had likely been made worse by paywalls. He added examples of newspapers that increased subscriptions by making content free, due to readers appreciating their coverage.
The New York Times and Washington Post are among numerous media outlets that place most of their content behind paywalls. (Photo illustration)
One X user wryly noted Stengel's piece was behind a paywall of its own at The Atlantic, something Stengel also admitted.
"The best way to address these challenges is for newsrooms to remove or suspend their paywalls for stories related to the 2024 election," he wrote. "I am mindful of the irony of putting this plea behind The Atlantic’s own paywall, but that’s exactly where the argument should be made."
He also seemed to suggest that most media outlets with paywalls were unbiased, although they include such left-leaning outlets as Stengel's own TIME Magazine, the New York Times, The Washington Post and others.
"A large percentage of these Americans see media as being biased," he wrote. "Well, part of the reason they think media are biased is that most fair, accurate, and unbiased news sits behind a wall. The free stuff needn’t be fair or accurate or unbiased. Disinformationists, conspiracy theorists, and Russian and Chinese troll farms don’t employ fact-checkers and libel lawyers and copy editors."
Stengel now serves as a political analyst at left-wing cable outlet MSNBC.
Stengel wasn't the only former TIME employee to move on to a prominent Obama administration position. Jay Carney was TIME's Washington bureau chief before going to direct communications for then-Vice President Biden and eventually being President Obama's second press secretary.
The Atlantic didn't respond to a request for comment about whether it would heed Stengel's advice and make its journalism free.
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Fox News' Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
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