Editor & Publisher reports that MediaNews Group is going to start experimenting with pay walls at two of its newspapers, possibly as early as the first quarter of 2010.

The two newspapers that will be getting the pay wall treatment are the Enterprise-Record in Chico, Ca., and the York (Pa.) Daily Record, with the San Jose Mercury News and the Denver Post following if the experiment is successful.

E&P quotes MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton as saying that not everything will be behind pay walls initially, just some content. And here's the interesting quote: "We have to condition readers that everything is not free."

When journalists talk about pay walls, one of the most frequently articulated points of view is that newspapers need to all throw them up at the same time or else they'll fail. MediaNews looks like it's taking a different approach: re-conditioning readers to expect to pay, the way iTunes, perhaps, conditioned music lovers to expect to pay for online music.

MediaNews' vice president for content development Howard Saltz told E&P they haven't decided what will go behind the pay wall. "In front of the wall, you want to remain competitive," he said. But "premium content" would require payment.