4 Ways to Keep Reading The New York Times Free

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On March 28, The New York Times started charging for its digital content – a big deal, since the venerable newspaper churns out so many exclusive stories and fascinating graphics (For example, this one, which lets you figure out how to balance the federal deficit.)

If you are a home delivery subscriber of The Times, you’ll still have access to their news online. But if you’re not, what’s now free will cost $15 a month for access to its website and mobile app – or $20 a month for both the website and its iPad app. Want the website, phone, and iPad in one package? That’s a whopping $35 per month.

But there are ways around paying, as the paper itself explains

  1. “On NYTimes.com, you can view 20 articles each month at no charge (including slide shows, videos and other features).” But after that, you gotta pay.
  2. “On our smartphone and tablet apps, the Top News section will remain free of charge.” That means you can use those apps to read the day’s headlines but nothing else.
  3. “Readers who come to Times articles through links from search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter will be able to read those articles, even if they have reached their monthly reading limit.” So one way to read articles free is to follow as many New York Times Twitter accounts as possible: Here’s a list. Another, of course, is to visit sites like this one.
  4. “The home page at NYTimes.com and all section fronts will remain free to browse for all users at all times.” Of course, that doesn’t really help when you want to drill down and read more – but it does mean you can then search for outside links or find a link on Twitter and get that content for free.

Bottom line: You can still get a lot of The New York Times for free, but it’ll take more of your time to find it.

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