'NYT' Opening TimesSelect to Students and Teachers for Free. At Editor & Publisher,

The New York Times is opening up access permanently to TimesSelect to all students and faculty who have .edu e-mail addresses beginning on March 13.

...The move coincides with the call for entry submissions for the second annual “Win a Trip with Nick” contest. The paper has started accepting student essays for the competition.

Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times op-ed columnist behind the TimesSelect wall, will chose one college or graduate student and one middle or high school teacher to accompany him on a trip to Africa in June, he announced on the Web site this past weekend.

(Vivian Schiller, senior vice president and general manager at NYTimes.com) says the company has “no regrets” putting 22 columnists at the Times and its sister newspaper The International Herald Tribune, archives and other material behind a pay wall.

Staci D. Kramer at PaidContent notes,

The rationale, as explained by GM Vivian Schiller in the release: “We want students to have unfettered access to the full, rich content of The New York Times, especially the varied opinions expressed by the 22 columnists whose voices are heard through TimesSelect.”

(Critics of TimesSelect will see this selective free access as an admission that the NYT made a mistake by putting its columnists behind a paywall and removing its columnists from much of the ongoing discussion about important subjects.)

Well, yes.

After all, how awkward to have columns very few have read leading the Commentary pack in the Pulitzer Prize betting? That's the fate of business columnist (and Providence native) Joseph Nocera.

Some bloggers with subscriptions (TimesSelect is free to Times print subscribers) have been copying the columns of their favorite TimesSelect columnists as a public service. We assume, now that the mainstream file-sharing world will have access, that this practice will spread, if the wall doesn't soon fall completely.