Washington Post to erect website pay wall

Washington - The Washington Post is joining elite newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times in asking frequent users to pay for reading its reports on the internet.

The major US daily newspaper said that it would introduce a so-called pay wall in the summer. Readers who look at more than 20 articles or multimedia features a month will have to pay, but the newspaper didn’t say how much it would charge.

Many newspapers have been reluctant to start charging for using their websites out of fear that it could drive readers away.

Subscribers to the print edition would be exempt from the charge, as would students, teachers, school administrators, government employees and military personnel when visiting the website from their schools and workplaces, the paper said.

Readers will have unlimited access to the paper’s front page and section front pages.

"News consumers are savvy; they understand the high cost of a top-quality news gathering operation and the importance of maintaining the kind of in-depth reporting for which the Post is known," Katharine Weymouth, publisher of the Post, said in a statement.

"Our digital package is a valuable one, and we are going to ask our readers to pay for it and help support our news gathering as they have done for many years with the print edition."//DPA