WSJ asks users to turn off ad blockers

The Wall Street Journal is asking its online readers to turn off their ad blockers, reports Lucia Moses of Digiday.

Moses writes, “Visitors to the financial news publisher’s site are being greeted with a polite message asking them to turn off their ad blockers and to subscribe to the publication.

“A rep for the Journal said it’s showing the messages to some WSJ.com readers in the U.S. and Europe who have installed ad blockers. It doesn’t block the Journal’s free-access articles.

“The move is interesting since the Journal is blocking articles that already require a subscription, making the case that not only should readers pay $200 a year for access but also take the ads (and tracking) that comes with the package. In the Journal’s case, the messages don’t appear to people unless they’re not logged in, though, either as a subscriber or through social media, which would seem to minimize that risk. It’s not known if the Journal plans to up the ante and prevent ad blockers from reading the site altogether.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.