I learned yesterday viaTwitter that Republican Senator Lindsey Graham would not be supporting the Kerry-Lieberman climate & energy bill that he helped to craft. Grist reporter David Roberts tweeted:
Profile in Courage: Lindsey Graham now says he’ll vote against #climatebill. Not enough offshore drilling left. http://bit.ly/bHraHO
The link, to National Journal, requires a subscription and offers only a teaser. Annoying. But I got the news and surely would hear more soon.
And I did, this morning, when I checked my email and opened up the day’s Wonkbook, Ezra Klein’s morning policy roundup. Here’s what Wonkbook gave me:
Citing changes to the offshore drilling provisions, Lindsey Graham says he’ll vote against the climate bill he helped write: http://bit.ly/bj4U7J
Nothing I didn’t know. And still the gated link. So I headed to my RSS reader. Sure enough, Brad Plumer had a nice post on the subject. Of course, he’s got a National Journal subscription, so in the course of the post he gives me three paragraphs from the original article, while adding analysis of his own. In case that wasn’t enough, the Washington Post’s post, links to the National Journal, and borrows a few quote from Graham.
I wrote previously about how hard it is for paywalls to compete with free content. As long as this sort of quoting is legal, there’s just no need for me to pay for hard news. Not only can other reporters cover the same story once it’s been broken, but bloggers can quote paragraphs at a time. So if you want me to support your journalism you’re better off asking nicely.
beyond the times 