The Salt Lake Tribune drops its paywall starting Thursday, moving to a donor-supported free-access model at sltrib.com.
Key Takeaways
All Salt Lake Tribune journalism becomes free to read at sltrib.com as of Thursday, May 2026.
The outlet is shifting to a donor/supporter funding model; a public list of supporters is published at sltrib.com/supporters.
Readers are invited to financially support the Tribune in this new phase despite free access.
No explicit mention in the source of whether ads will run alongside free content.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters split on donor-funding vs. advertiser-funding: donor model seen as less corrosive to editorial independence, but still a conflict-of-interest risk.
Canadian and government-funded news examples raised as warnings: outlets dependent on public or donor money can self-censor on stories that threaten funding sources.
De Correspondent’s subscriber share-link model cited as an underused alternative: paywalled by default, but subscribers generate free share links, preserving both revenue and open access for viral content.
Notable Comments
@skrebbel: Details De Correspondent’s hybrid model where subscribers share unique free-access links, enabling open reading without full paywall removal.
@droolboy: Points to Canadian publicly funded outlets avoiding criticism of government “for fear of getting defunded” as a concrete cautionary case.
