Our best stories of 2024

Take a peek behind the paywall

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By Hanna Raskin

We’re in the thick of journalism contest season, which means judges armed with secret passcodes are gallivanting around The Food Section’s website, hoping to bump up against quality work.

At least, they’re supposed to have passcodes. But contest organizers sometimes forget to distribute that essential information, in which case judges can’t get very far. When that happens, they’re apt to contact me directly, as one judge did last week. “I am reaching out because your article is behind a paywall,” she wrote.

This was not news to me. Yet there was something about the way she worded her message that made me feel like she’d noticed my zipper was down.

Paywalls have never been popular, but it seems like criticism of charging for stories is on the upswing. That’s mostly because concerns about disinformation are mounting in the wake of Donald Trump’s reelection: Back in April, The Atlantic published a column on the topic titled “Democracy Dies Behind Paywalls: The Case for Making Journalism Free.” According to author Richard Stengel…actually, I have no idea what constitutes Stengel’s argument, because the story is behind a paywall.

But I can tell you why I have a strict paywall in place at thefoodsection.com. There are two reasons:

Journalism isn’t free to produce, so it shouldn’t be free to consume. I fully understand that subscription sales are just one way to cover the costs of reporting, editing, and distributing news, but I fear that if readers aren’t reminded of media organizations’ ongoing financial investments, they’ll forever feel entitled to anything with a byline on it. That mindset is harmful to my fellow writers, and I’d rather not help cultivate it.
Among the afore-mentioned other ways to cover the high price of journalism is the support of generous benefactors, who give lots of money so other readers don’t have to give anything at all. To be sure, I’m not opposed to generous benefaction. But I’m not crazy about the hierarchy that the setup creates. Equality and fairness are at the heart of The Food Section’s mission, so I like the idea that every reader pays the same amount for access, whether she’s a restaurant busser or a restaurant tycoon.

Which is to say: The Food Section’s paywall is more principled than your average cash grab. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right strategy for this publication or its readers.

Fortunately, one of The Food Section’s official corporate values is experimentation. (The others are independence, integrity, transparency, intellectual engagement, and excellence.) As it says in the TFS Handbook, “We’re game to try just about anything that doesn’t cause harm, and don’t shrink from the untried or the unusual.”

So, let’s give this no-paywall thing a go.

To celebrate another year of The Food Section—which you can read about in detail when our annual report drops this Friday—I’ve lowered the paywall around two dozen standout stories we published in 2024. The following stories are now free to read; all you have to do is enjoy them.

And I have to figure out if this works. “Works” in this context means people respond positively, whether via email, online comments, or social media posts. More importantly, it means they pay for what they read—whether by purchasing a subscription, making a donation, or buying TFS merch—even though there’s no requirement for them to do so.

Who knows? The wall could fall in 2025! (Possibly along with American civilization, but consider that one more reason to back independent journalism in a meaningful way today. Did you know TFS sells bucket hats?)