News Ltd has a complicated relationship with the internet. On one hand, they seem to view bloggers and tweeters as news parasites, stealing their hard-won, quality content for snarky posts. And then there’s Google, aggregating news so that we freeloaders can read it without annoying popup ads. In order to stop this online anarchy, Rupert Murdoch proposes charging for access to News’ online content:
Quality journalism is not cheap. The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites.
Did he say “quality journalism”? I would pay for quality journalism, however I don’t see much evidence of that in Murdoch’s publications. In fact, I don’t see much of it in local papers – printed or online – at all. If Fairfax joins News in charging for online access, I’ll be no less informed than I currently am. I’ll continue to get my news from the ABC, the BBC, the Guardian and the New York Times. If the non-government news providers join in and start charging for access, I might consider paying for the Guardian and the NYT. Would I miss out on local news? No, the ABC has it covered.
But this is old news, I hear you say. Why’s she banging on about this now? Well, there’s the “other hand”, the one that News likes to bite, but still expects to receive food from. A couple of weeks ago, during the exciting days of the Liberal party leadership meltdown, #spill on Twitter was a vital source of gossip and updates. What quality content did the Herald-Sun come up with for it’s online coverage? They pulled a bunch of tweets and published them. How do I know this, when I scrupulously avoid reading the Hun these days? I received this from a fellow tweeter:
I see you got quotes on the Herald-Sun website in their Abbott-Twitter story!
Yep. One line from a long twitter exchange with @teacoffeetea was taken out of context and dumped in a Hun story. The fact that it didn’t make sense in isolation only further illustrates the Hun’s limited understanding of the medium. And, as much as I like to think that my observations are all gold, pure gold, I’d be hoping for more if I were to pay for the content.
Haha! The one time I can remember reading the Herald Sun, I was on camp, and the only TV news we could watch was on Channel Ten, and the only newspapers there were to read were editions of the Herald Sun. I recall pretty clearly that there was one actual newsy (i.e. political) item on page 23, another on page 44, and the rest was rubbish about sports and celebrities and so on. It was absurd.
Rupert Murdoch’s attitude to the internet (as a threat to his news empire) is bewildering, but I still read The Australian online. Until he revokes free access to it, that is… then maybe I’ll jump ship to the ABC. I used to subscribe to the ABC feed as well, but it got frustrating scrolling past article after article about every single car crash and drunken brawl in the whole of Australia. The advantage of The Australian is that it doesn’t waffle on about that stuff, and it manages to incorporate a fair bit of Rudd-criticising, which is always welcome. I do (usually) watch the ABC news and 7.30 Report, though.
Anyway… I do agree that his content is not worth paying for. Let’s not forget that News Corp is also in charge of the local newspapers, the Leader, which must explain why they’re so crap and useless.
You’re just going to confuse the Herald Sun editors here. They’d be expecting you to be grateful for being quoted in their newspaper. To react any other way is simply unAustralian.
Anyway, sports news aside, does anyone actually read the Herald Sun online? It’d be interesting to know how many hits they get compared to other major newspapers. Even on specific areas like international politics, local politics, business, and arts, there would be other sources of information that would be favoured far more by readers than the Murdoch press. The only major Australian newspaper I know that charges for online content is the Australian Financial Review.
I would also disagree with Jess on the state of the Leader. Whilst I’m not one for local news, I do know plenty of people who read the Leader to know what is happening in their local communities. In some ways, the future of newspapers is in the local press where the content is far less likely to appear for free on the internet. However, you need a strong local team of reporters to make sure the stories do connect with the local community.
Jess – there are always copies of the Herald-Sun lying around at work, and I am occasionally tempted to open one by a hyperbolic headline. It always ends in dissatisfaction, though.
Daniel – I used to check in on the online Hun every now and then, just for a blood pressure boost. It’s easy to see from the virtual front page which stories will give the most reading pleasure from the number of comments. Skip the story; read the comments. Not recommended unless you feel you are losing your misanthropic edge and want to metaphorically sharpen it, of course.
Local newspapers? Fortunately we’re not burdened by them here. I always found them a waste of resources when we were living in local-newspaper-covered areas. A strong team of local reporters would be a cure for all that ails newspapers: local, state and national! I once worked with a woman whose response to almost any situation was “When I was at Fairfax…”. Finally one day it all became too much, so I clarified “so, you were with The Age?”. That’s when I found out she was with their Werribee paper…
Trust the news. Someone’s gotta be joking. I think I commented earlier to r raver that you can’t, and the books such as “Malice in Media Land” and “Fixing the News” prove it.
Anyway for murdoch to whinge about people not buying papers is laughable. How much of the world’s money does he want to control in this wonderful new world order?
And don’t start me on control. I believe heavenly crudd’s mob want to censor the internett. FINE if the only thing to be censored are those unspeakably vile porn sites, but what about political comment? How are we to get “the other side of a story” if all the sites one side or the other of politics are so thoughtfully censorsed for us.
Hopefully SBS will remain afloat!
Sourkraut, the way SBS is going, though, they will probably try to trademark the term “World News”. Then they’ll be committed to spending too much money and energy fighting those who accidentally use the words world and news in a sentence without seeking prior permission.