The news that The New York Times will soon be publishing its entire content on Flipboard seems to signal a decisive change in the way in which traditional press and media companies engage with their audiences. From this Thursday, the entire content of the NYT will be available to subscribers, whilst non-subscribers will be able to read a limited amount of articles found in the paper’s Top News section.

The partnership with Flipboard is quite a departure from the Times's previous stance on its digital content. In the past it was necessary to have a subscription to see more than 10 NYT articles, and its digital version could only be viewed via the paper’s apps and website or by reading excerpts quoted by third parties. Explaining why a company that had previously guarded its digital content so jealously has made such a bold move, Denise F. Warren, general manager of The New York Times’s website points out that in a survey of the paper’s subscribers 20 percent of those asked used third-party aggregation apps like Flipboard. The deal still leaves the paywall system in place, but leading figures at the paper hope that allowing partial access to certain articles will encourage many who have not subscribed already to do so.