The move to start charging for access to News Corporation ’s newspaper websites has generated much heat and probably very little light amongst commentators and aficionados who see this as the “evil empire” subverting the ethos of the “free web”, free access to information and the general all round edification of mankind. It’s not the first time Murdoch has taken the Internet to task of course, having previously accused Google of poaching content it doesn’t own and urging media outlets to fight back.
“Google Devalues Everything it Touches”
It would appear that newspapers have seen new distribution channels changing the whole dynamics of their business. Murdoch maintains that Google (which doesn’t produce any journalism of its own) have made themselves a fortune by simply organising the work of others and selling advertising against it while the originating authors suffer.The managing editor of Wall Street Journal, Mr Robert Thomson has actually come out and said that “Google devalues everything it touches. It divides content quantitatively rather than qualitatively.” Google of course see it differently, maintaining that all they do is show just enough information to make the user want to read a full story with the headline, a line of text and links to send more than 300 million clicks a month to newspaper web sites.
It has become clear that even if hard news does come direct from Fox it is in fact a very valuable and precious asset. Good journalism (whether for a national daily or a monthly trade mag) costs money. Whatever you think of him, Murdoch is a smart cookie and has long regarded free-to-access news websites as a “malfunctioning” business model.The upsurge in online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal have demonstrated that it is conceivable to charge for content on the web.Could it be that perhaps Murdoch for once could be right, and not just because he himself needs to generate money to make up for the declining earnings across News Corporation.
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