The Spokesman-Review Paywall: How to Read Spokesman.com Articles for Free
The Spokesman-Review runs a metered paywall on spokesman.com. How the Spokane paper gates its stories, what our tests found and how to read a full article.
Paywall behaviour last tested
The Spokesman-Review is the daily newspaper of Spokane, Washington, and the main paper of the Inland Northwest, the region that takes in eastern Washington and northern Idaho. It has been owned by the Cowles family for more than a century, which makes it one of the few metro dailies in the United States still in family hands. In April 2025 the family announced that it would donate the paper to a new local nonprofit, the Comma Community Journalism Lab, which reached its $2 million fundraising goal in May 2026 and began the ownership transfer. The paper's Washington State University sport coverage, its court and crime reporting and its regional politics are what most readers arrive for from a search result or a social media link, and all of it sits behind the meter. This guide explains how the paywall works and how to read a full article.
How the Spokesman-Review paywall works
The Spokesman-Review runs a metered paywall. Non-subscribers can open a handful of articles before spokesman.com asks them to subscribe, and the meter has long been described, including by the paper itself, as "porous", meaning it leaves plenty of routes to the text for a reader who wants it. Subscribers get unlimited access to spokesman.com, the e-edition replica of the print paper and the revived evening Spokane Daily Chronicle, which is published for subscribers as an e-edition.
The gate is enforced in the browser. Article pages carry a schema.org marker, `isAccessibleForFree: false`, telling search engines that the content is behind a paywall, and the full text is delivered in the page so that Google can index it. A script then counts your visits in a cookie and, once you are over the limit, hides the body behind the subscription box. A reader that fetches the page without running that script receives the whole article. Our explainer on metered versus hard paywalls sets out why that distinction matters, and as far as we can tell The Spokesman-Review sits on the softer side of it.
Our tests on 30 October 2026 through Skip the Paywall:
- A 1,337-word Spokesman-Review WSU football feature on tight end Trey Leckner's injury rehab loaded in full, all 21 paragraphs.
- A 1,118-word Spokesman-Review "Rewind" analysis of the Cougars' offensive-line problem after the loss to Boise State loaded in full, all 17 paragraphs.
- A 533-word Spokesman-Review court report on a man resentenced for the 1997 murder of an 85-year-old Spokane woman loaded in full, all 13 paragraphs.
Read a Spokesman-Review article in full
- Copy the article link. Spokesman-Review links look like spokesman.com/stories/2026/oct/29/ followed by the headline as a slug.
- Paste it into the box on the home page and press Read Article.
- The story appears in a clean reader view with the headline, byline and full text.
Other approaches
- Newsletters. The Spokesman-Review sends free email newsletters that summarise the day's stories and link to them. The links count against the meter like any other visit, so the newsletter is a way to choose which articles to spend your allowance on rather than a way round it.
- Library access. Many Washington libraries offer newspaper databases to cardholders. What is included varies from district to district, so check with your local library whether The Spokesman-Review is part of its digital collection before assuming it is.
- Private windows. The meter lives in a cookie, so opening an article in a private window, or clearing cookies for spokesman.com, starts the count again.
- Related free sources. Washington court records, Spokane city council agendas and WSU's own athletics site publish the primary material behind much of the paper's reporting, and the paper's stories can be checked against them.
How it compares with other Washington papers
The two other Washington dailies we have tested behave the same way. The Seattle Times loads in full, and so does the Yakima Herald-Republic in central Washington. All three deliver the article text in the page and hide it with a script, so a reader that skips the script gets the complete story. The full list of sites that work is kept current.
Subscribe if you read it regularly
The Spokesman-Review is the Inland Northwest's main daily newsroom and it is in the middle of a move to nonprofit ownership that depends on local support. If you follow the Cougars, Spokane politics or the courts every week, a digital subscription is the right way to keep that reporting going.
Try it with an article
Paste the URL of an article from The Spokesman-Review and read it in a clean reader view. Free, instant, no signup.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns The Spokesman-Review?
The Cowles family, which has owned the Spokane paper for more than a century. In April 2025 the family announced that it would donate the paper to a new local nonprofit, the Comma Community Journalism Lab, which reached its $2 million fundraising goal in May 2026 and began the ownership transfer.
Does the reader work on Spokesman-Review articles?
Yes. All three articles in our 30 October 2026 tests, two WSU football pieces and a court report, loaded in full. The paper runs a metered paywall enforced in the browser, and the article text is in the page for the reader to fetch.
Does it work on The Seattle Times too?
Yes. The Seattle Times and the Yakima Herald-Republic both load in full, and each has its own guide. All three Washington papers we have tested hide the article text with a script rather than withholding it from the page.