What on earth is Fairfax doing? It seems that it depends on which hand you are looking at — the left or the right.

Over the past few weeks the Canberra Times newspaper has taken to not running anything other than the first few paragraphs of a news story on its website, then finishing off with a “for more, pick up today’s Canberra Times”.

It’s been annoying the reporters, not only because of the retro thinking, but also  because their competition at the ABC has taken to picking up the yarns and running their own version online, effectively stealing the thunder from reporters who have put days of work into a story.

Then this morning, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald did the same thing with its excellent scoop on the affairs of Joel Fitzgibbon.

Web readers would have seen only a few paragraphs, before a line urging them to buy the paper to read the rest:

To read more of this exclusive report, buy your copy of today’s Age.

Is this a paywall strategy in the making? Was Fairfax preparing to charge for online access?

Well, it seems that “strategy” is too strong a word.

Fairfax group executive editor Phil McLean didn’t know what we were talking about when we rang him first thing this morning. He got back to us just before deadline to say “it was a trial”.

He was talking past tense. So when did the trial end?

Apparently about an hour before, because after our first call to McLean, the full Fitzgibbon scoop miraculously became available online on The Age. The Sydney Morning Herald, however, still reads like this:

SMH

Is it a pay wall strategy? “I wouldn’t read too much into it,” said McLean.

I am left wondering if the fact that the Fitzgibbon story is a shared effort between the Canberra Times, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald has led to some glitch in the online system. McLean would not elaborate on the reasoning for the short-lived “trial”.

Would the Canberra Times continue the “trial”?

McLean said we would have to ask the publisher of the Canberra Times, which, sadly, I have not had time to do before deadline this morning.

I’ll follow up and run any response on my blog.

But it does seem that to call this a strategy would be to glorify it. Other words may be more appropriate.