No, absolutely I would not. Newspapers and magazines make most of their money from advertising and not from subscriptions and newsstand sales. Those sales pay for the materials used to produce print media (ink, paper, machinery, repairs, delivery, and associated staff). Every time there is a new medium the same organizations bitch and moan. This happened with radio and television after that.
Also, the internet is a hell of a lot closer to print than radio or television in the respect that you largely read text and can pick and choose what you take in and when. Whereas with radio and television you get whatever is being served up on the channel. Due to this similarity, the 'problem' shouldn't be that difficult to solve.
IMO, print media companies need to band together to get cheap, easy-to-use, and durable e-readers on the market in order to convert the last of the print die-hards (e.g. the elderly and tech-challenged) to the electronic format so they don't simply lose those readers. They can continue to charge for the e-reader subscriptions because that demographic doesn't know how to get it for free anyway. At the same time they need to also collectively demand more dollars for their online advertising space to rival that of their print space. Afterall, print media does not allow the reader to simply click on an ad and be instantaneously transported to the checkout line, electronic media does. With the money saved by the tremendous overhead of large offices and the steady decline of printed materials (and all associated costs) they should be making relatively the same amount of money as before or perhaps even more.
What they're really afraid of is that whenever there is a paradigm shift it opens the door for new organizations to enter the fray and compete. This is what scares the hell out of them. NYT is used to competing with WashPo and WSJ, not HuffPo and Drudge Report. The devil you know is always better than the one you don't.
As far as the second part of the question, they would have to give me something tangible, something I could hold in my hand to justify charging for a subscription. Off the top of my head: give free or highly discounted e-readers with multi-year subscriptions and 'deliver' the content to that device (with maybe a web login as well). Cell phone carriers apply the same model and they're not hurting by giving away or seriously discounting phones with multi-year contracts.