Washington Post Reportedly Planning Paywall for 2013

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that The Washington Post is planning on implementing a metered paywall next year. Like the paywall at the New York Times, the site would allow people to read a few articles per month before being blocked by the paywall. The Wall Street Journal story also says the Post plans to hike newsstand prices.

The Washington Post has a story that quotes Post chief executive Donald E. Graham as saying that they are studying a paywall, but remain concerned about losing their national audience if they implement one. There is a strong possibility that the weak economy and weak advertising climate is in a way forcing newspapers to implement paywalls and the newspapers that implement paywalls are losing traffic to rival newspapers.