How to Clip Articles from Paywalled Publications Like WSJ and FT
If you work in PR or communications, you need access to paywalled publications. The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, and Bloomberg publish the coverage your clients care about most. But sharing that coverage with clients is complicated by paywalls.
The Subscription Approach
The most straightforward solution is having subscriptions to the publications you monitor regularly. For most PR firms, this means subscriptions to the major business and financial outlets. The cost is a legitimate business expense and it gives you clean, authorized access to the full article text.
Why Links Don't Work
Sending a client a link to a paywalled article is not useful. If they do not have a subscription, they see a paywall. If they do have a subscription, they still have to log in, find the article, and read it in a cluttered browser with ads and popups. Either way, you have not actually delivered the coverage to them.
Clipping as Fair Use
In most jurisdictions, sharing a clipped article with a specific client for the purpose of demonstrating media coverage is considered a legitimate professional use. You are not republishing the article to the public. You are providing it to a specific party as documentation of PR results. Consult your legal team for guidance specific to your situation.
The Workflow
Log in to the publication. Open the article. Use a clipping tool like Manny to extract the clean text. The tool captures the full article from the rendered page, which means if you can see it, Manny can clip it. The clip is saved to the Doghouse with the correct headline, byline, and publication date.
What to Include in Client Deliverables
When sharing clipped paywalled articles, always include the publication name, the original publication date, the headline, the byline, and a link to the original article. This gives proper attribution and allows anyone with a subscription to verify the source. Add a cover note explaining why the article is significant.