If any object has become a universal target of revulsion for the global left wing, FOX News fits that particular bill.It isn't all that hard to see why the left wing hates FOX News -- describing itself as "fair and balanced", the network is actually unabashedly conservative.Nobody should realistically question this. The network has employed a number of left-wingers within its organization, but as OutFOXed notes, they have tended to be particularly weak.But aside from this, OutFOXed fails to answer one important question: why, precisely, does this matter?OutFOXed closes with an argument in favour of something akin to the Fairness Doctrine -- the Fairness Doctrine if necessary, but not necessarily the Fairness Doctrine.The Fairness Doctrine was a legislative framework that required media...
I’m not sure the free content genie can ever be completely put back in the bottle but the iPad is certainly providing newspaper and magazine publishers with a lot of encouragement that consumers could start coughing up for some content again.
Engadget has a story suggesting that the Wall St. Journal is going to charge $17.99/month for a subscription on the iPad. If WSJ owner Rupert Murdoch can pull it off, more power to him – and more revenue, in theory, to many content players looking for salvation.
The big question is whether form will change consumer behaviour. Will the user-friendly size of the iPad and the fact it can be a quasi-mobile device be a compelling enough proposition that content becomes “valuable” again? If consumers can enjoy a good experience in...
News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch has proved, yet again, that he is a dinosaur who does not fit in with today’s world in the 21st century. Miffed by aggregators, like Google News, Murdoch has sworn to fight Google and other online aggregators with all his might. Apparently, the old chap does not like the enormous traffic that aggregators like Google drive to his online assets. Another fool, but not yet as old as Murdoch, is Newsweek’s Daniel Lyons, the magazine’s “pundit” on technology. Lyons shares Murdoch’s views of online aggregators and even calls them “parasites” (as if anyone would ever find or read Lyons’ articles if it were not for Google). Like Murdoch, Lyons calls for an end to aggregators and bloggers linking to specific pages. Both Murdoch and Lyons do...
It has been documented to death that the business of journalism is broken but no one has come up with a widely-embraced killer idea to save it.
The exception, however, is News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch who has been leading the charge recently about introducing paywalls – something already done at the Wall St. Journal.
Now, Murdoch has raised the idea of not letting News Corp.’s Web sites be indexed by Google. In an interview with Sky News political editor David Speers, Murdoch suggests that while Google drives a lot of traffic to News Corp. sites, he’d rather have fewer people visiting but have those people pay for content.
“They shouldn’t have had it free all the time. I think we’ve been asleep,” he said after Speers asked him about the fact...
Maybe I’m alone in the woods but it seems like it’s only a matter of time before newspapers – at least world-class newspapers – start charging for more of their content.
Case in point is the Financial Times, which plans to introduce a pay-per-view system for online content next summer, while exploring whether FT.com content should stay free. (The Guardian has more details on how the FT’s subscription model could evolve.)
It’s becoming obvious – at least to me – the online pendulum is swinging away from free. It may not swing all the way back to paid, but the free buffet is going to over soon because newspaper owners such as Rupert Murdoch have realized their investments aren’t viable under the current free system.
That said, not all...
With Apple apparently scrambling to introduce a tablet computer by early next year, a bigger issue to consider is whether Apple can save the newspaper business much like it has come to the rescue of the music industry.
For years, newspapers have done a terrible job of embracing the Web and reconfiguring their business structures to the new economic, advertising and readership landscape.
Even as dozens of newspapers close or because Web-only entities with skeleton staffs, the industry still hasn’t figure out how to be vibrant and viable. For many newspapers, their only salvation will be charging for online content – something Rupert Murdoch intends to introduce next summer.
So where does Apple fits into the mix, and why could it save newspapers from themselves?
Before Apple...
There’s been a lot of chatter recently about newspapers charging for online content, led by media doyen Rupert Murdoch who is pushing the idea of micro-payments.
The San Jose Mercury has climbed on the pay-to-play bandwagon by announcing it’s going to start charging for online content - a move Mike Masnick describes as a “move destined to fail dismally (and quickly)” given there aren’t many compelling reasons for people to read the paper online now for free.
While the Mercury’s move may not work, I wonder whether it’s a sign of things to come within the beleaguered newspaper industry. Over the past few years, newspapers have tried a variety of different models to stay financially viable. They’ve charged for all content; given some content...
Over the past few years, newspapers have salivated on and off about the idea of selling online subscriptions to generate much-needed revenue. In practice, few of them have been successful, mostly because most content a newspaper might have wanted to sell is available elsewhere at no cost.
But with newspapers desperate for revenue as they scramble to survive, newspapers are turning their sites again on getting consumers to pay for online content. According to the Financial Times, the Wall St. Journal, for example, is considering micro-payments for specific stories, as well as, monthly subscriptions.
Rupert Murdoch, who owns the WSJ, recently described the availability of free content as a “flawed” business model, while talking about possible fees to read more newspapers within...
The Fox Business News network is coming soon: it will be launched on October 15 across the United States, and there are also negotiations underway for the new network to be carried on Canadian cable.
Every media outlet has a certain political bias. With all the off-air networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.) and CNN being very much to the left on the political spectrum, Fox News has been the sole voice of conservatism. And this is not a bad thing. As a matter of fact, seeing how many left-wing networks and newspapers there are, there is room for a lot more on the right.
Media Matters, a very leftist outfit, has already written a review about Rupert Murdoch's new business channel and given its opinion before the station has even gone on the air:As Media Matters for America documents below, if...
Rupert Murdoch paid a hefty premium (a 65% premium, in fact) to secure the Wall Street Journal. As someone who has always been traditionally viewed as an outsider (although, probably not for some time now), this must be one tasty win, best relished with a cold beverage (I don’t really know what kind of cold beverage billionaires drink, but I assume they still enjoy cold beverages). While the Free vs. Fee debate rages on with an interesting article in Businessweek, my opinion about the matter as it refers to the Wall Street Journal is taking on a decidedly “it doesn’t matter” kind of stance.
And this is because, in situations like this, I suspect that it isn’t always about the bottom line. Read the Businessweek article if you wish. There are loads of...
With the news that the WSJ has essentially been all but sold to Rupert Murdoch and News Corp, there has been a resurrection of some conversation around the paywall around the WSJ. Namely, that it might – or perhaps, should — be taken down. This isn’t just the fever dream of cheap would-be media wonks (such as myself), but as Mat Ingram rightly points out, this is something that Rupert Murdoch himself mused out aloud to Time Magazine some months ago.
I understand and sympathize with the “make the online WSJ free” argument. All things being equal I like free things too — and understand what kind of strategic benefits it might play out, both for its bottom line (although the numbers really have to be crunched out, and more than the helpful...