This is not a polemic on the rights of free press. I leave that to others. My expertise is on branding and this most recent WikiLeaks incident demonstrates an aspect of brand relevancy that would be difficult to demonstrate any better in a laboratory.

Brand is measured as a permission. Think about it like this. What does a brand have permission to do and not do? What does a brand demand of the business to remain true to the brand promise and live up to its brand permissions? Is the NY Times’ brand summarized in its famous theme line, ”All the news that’s fit to print”? If it is, there are two basic problems that the Times needs to deal with.

The first problem is that the brand, as currently stated, is inside-out. It is not about the reader. Instead, it is all about the newspaper. It is a description of what the newspaper promises to do but it does not describe who the reader believes they are when they read it.

This is an important and subtle difference. Here’s why. Since it is currently about the newspaper itself, the Times had to print the WikiLeaks documents. After all, the brand promises to print everything. When you think about it, the current brand promise is a “dumb” (meaning non-intelligent) promise.

So the current “dumb” brand promise dictated the New York Times to print the documents, even if the editorial staff deemed them ultimately damaging to the society that currently pays their bills. They had to do it.

This means the Times may pay the price for this lack of choice. In a free market, if the buying and advertising public (their current customers) believes the New York Times’ action was not in keeping with their own self-interests, they can vote with their wallets and the Times will pay a steep price. (And circulation at the Times is dropping.)

I want to applaud the editorial board of the Times for so steadfastly defending their brand promise (as they currently understand it). Many companies can learn a great deal from the Times’ willingness to remain true to their brand, regardless of consequence.

But the Times made a fundamental mistake. The business of its business is in printing all the news that’s fit to print. But its business of the brand is very different. Those that read the paper believe the brand is about how smart and informed they (the readers) are for having chosen it. Information (informed) is a support point to the more emotional “smart.” Part of “smart” is to be discerning about what one reads and what one does. It is the decision made as to the appropriateness that defines how smart we are with the information we get.

Had the New York Times understood that we (the reading public) are not “all the news that is fit to print,” but rather the smart, discerning and informed, the editorial staff would have had permission to pass.

Instead, because brand permissions are so misunderstood, we all pay the price for the New York Times’ ignorance.

One of our strategists at Stealing Share is a former journalist who has always amazed me with stories of how, for years, newspapers (including those he worked at) were late developing content-driven web sites, letting the Salon.com and Slate.com’s of the world take the first lead. Those early websites initially just had contact information with one of his editors boasting, “The Internet will never last,” an attitude that helped get news organization into the fix they’re in now.

Those news sites are different now, of course. Just about every newspaper in the world has a content-driven website and, among the largest newspapers in this country, they are some of the most sophisticated, complete with video, links and Twitter accounts.

But as we documented in a recent consumer study, Americans have found mainstream media to be more entertainment than news and that’s part of the reason why newspapers are going to find it difficult increasing revenue by moving to a increasing online focus.

The New York Times, for instance, recently emailed a survey to subscribers asking if they would pay $2.50 a month to access its website ($5 for non-subscribers). You don’t have to be the Amazing Kreskin to know what those answers are going to be: A resounding “No!”

Our nationwide study showed that only 11.2% of all Americans would be willing to pay a subscription fee for online content. And why would they? They already get it for free, especially when the headlines of the New York Times are similar those at other outlets, especially the sites of the cable news networks.

Even if you are a subscriber to the New York Times, would your life be affected if you couldn’t access its website? (You’ll just go to CNN.) The cat, in a essence, has already been let out of the bag. Users have become accustomed to reading online news content for free. (Only the Wall Street Journal started right off the bat charging a fee.)

But there’s more to it than that. The New York Times has seen ad sales on its site drop 8%, and that’s not surprising considering the economy and that advertisers have gotten savvier about spending their online advertising dollars. (Pop-up ads? Nobody clicks on them.) While online subscriptions are intended to make up the losses, they will instead lower viewership, meaning advertisers will be less likely to advertise than they are now.

The New York Times, while one of the most respected news organizations in the world, is still lumped in with the changing view of mainstream media that focuses on pop culture rather than on more important affairs. (We just initiated a military surge in Afghanistan. But you couldn’t read about it through the haze of Michael Jackson and Steve McNair stories.)

NYT is also a national (even global) news organization, which means it’s content is not terribly unique. Granted, it does take news more seriously than most of its competitors, but journalism has changed and the audiences has changed along with it.

I often lament the way news has become entertainment (and two out of every three Americans agree that’s what has taken place). But the sad truth is that news organizations simply responded to what people wanted (or, at least, in a chase for ratings and advertising dollars, what they thought audiences wanted) – which means a fee-based online model for the Times is too late.