When Rupert immigrated to the USA and began/ continued buying up newspapers and media outlets like a hungry Jabba, and especially when he bought up the venerable Wall Street Journal, he threw around a lot of words saying ‘Ah, open access for all’…
his properties would be open content, no fees for most anything except expert financial reports.
But, Rupert has changed his mind today and wants to charge for news content across the board now.
It wouldn’t be at such issue if he weren’t a monopolist, owning among many many other newspapers and media outlets, also Harper Collins of the OJ Simpson/ editor Judy Reagan debacle, and being known for blocking book publications of more than just Oj’s sick conceit.
The subtext of his move, is in my opinion, to put newsblogs and other small, passionate, earnest groups out of business as aggregators and ‘fair use’ users of news stories…
then seemingly, to buy up certain newsblogs that have highest traffic, to anoint a few writers who hold up Rupert’s lop-sided party line, and to freeze out the rest. Which would be millions of journos, news-writers, and citizen opiners and reporters. Worldwide. As Rupert’s ownership of media sprawls and spawns worldwide also.
Rupert wants the ad revenue, he says. Has to have it he says. He wants more than the readers, he wants the entire landscape. He’s a colonizer and a conqueror with no love for livelihoods of individuals, (as witness his bloodbath at Wall Street Journal re incredibly good journalists who’d been loyal and ace-insightful for years and sudden had their chairs taken away) … his love is for lucre alone. That’s the old business model of pillagers… since time out of mind.
Rupert also owns MySpace. How he will squeeze users to pay for that, is in his plan also, apparently.
Read more about Rupert’s plans at Crains of New York Business.com
Among News Corp.’s stable of dailies is The New York Post, The Times of London and The Sun, News Corp. already charges for some access to The Wall Street Journal’s Web site. It also owns the social-networking site, MySpace.
The idea of charging online is a reversal for Mr. Murdoch, who talked about throwing open the Journal’s paid site when his company took over the newspaper in 2008.
In terms of business model and heart, it may be that an accurate moniker is Rupert the Troll? You know, the Troll who lives under the bridge and demands tribute from all or else starves and kills them? That kind of troll.
I wonder then, who will be the Billy Goat Gruff of his time… the one to undo him? the FCC? the SEC? the Justice Department that looks into monopolies? The entire village of raging bloggers with torches and pitchforks? The readers who are ever the poorer when channeled into a narrow chute of local, national and international news, colored by the political attitude of the Troll/ owner who silences others by withdrawing access, and by charging money for news… because his own model of charging outrageous fees for advertising over all these years has finally failed?
Apparently the business model from Rupert’s and other megalo-monopolist wanna’s bes is to de-intelligentize internet users by blocking free access to news and critical information unless they can pay… and pay.
This old business model is based on assuming all would be able to pay for news (wrong) or have the money for gasoline to make it to the local library or taking the bus to ‘free internet access’ (after second shift and after helping one’s kids with homework, calming night time fears, sitting down to eat spaghettios out of a tin can).
1. I can see from the decades I’ve lived that if 100 men holding most power, can continuously divide a society into haves and have-nots in terms of knowledge of our world, that is, knowledge of opportunities that ought be available to us– and ways to be a contender for those opportunities– knowledge of contravening forces on our paths and how to defeat them, knowledge of hidden agendas and thieves and cutpurses who are wearing the masks of the trustworthy…
if these are kept from the people; the masses are controllable. Death by “not knowing.”
2. if those 100 men can continuously dumb down and restrict access to basic awareness of the world and ideas— about how to hold one’s own, how to resist marauders, how to educate the unaware, how to defeat the supercilious, and lift far better into place… that these 100 men can silence the majority of the people… and keep their “grab-everything-in-sight” powers… while giving the have-nots the odd idea that they are mostly free… because they know less and less instead of more and more that is useful.
3. Who will suffer. Here are just a few from various levels of cultures… :
3a. In our time the internet has had farther reach than any squadron of teachers in educating and reaching literally millions of people. I think just now of how others will be affected by pay for news: I’m a commissioner for Boy Scouts. We have what are called ‘‘lone scouts,’ who are young boys in the boondocks who have no troop or leader and who we teach/ help by internet instead. Many of their over 100 badges rely on a current news component, whether in astronomy, biology, current events, meteorology. Many lone scouts haven’t enough money for school, let alone to pay for Rupert and VPs’ third yachts.
3b. Via the internet, we have had unprecedented info regarding diagnosing and health care. Will those who have chronic and difficult illnesses have to pay in order to have the most basic cutting edge info on what is newly available for cure and care?
News is news because it is NEW. To attempt, in our time of fast delivery of critical health news info, to accept a business model of doing ‘collateral damage’ to others, to harm, to endanger, to starve people out by merely allowing them free access to old and often outdated info, is wrong.
3c. In our time, the swiftness of news arrival… means higher potential for intervention, for aid sent, for resistance made in disastrous situations, in crises at home and worldwide. My articles at TMV on dictator Than Shwe’s brutal crushing of peaceful marchers and his murder of peaceful monks and nuns would not have been possible without private correspondents from Yangon emailing me and other news sources with photos and films take on camera phone. Will Rupert and friends suddenly be paying ‘citizen-reporters’ worldwide who are desperately sending out cries for help… and will Rupert make it so we have to pay to hear those cries that formerly came to us when the people were most in need?
Likewise, the article I sadly wrote about Neda, an innocent young women being shot to death by Amahdinjad’s thugs during peaceful demonstrations in Iran. Did Rupert pay the citizen journalists who sent his owned outlets those stills and films? Will we have to pay to find out where to aim our prayers? Will we have to pay to find out where we must apply pressure and on whom, here and worldwide?
And ditto, ditto all articles by writers at TMV and all other newsblogs. It’s not mere access to news, Rupert. It’s often, as hard as it might seem to someone who lives in abject luxury with enough money for everything, decent health, and few worries….to those who live far differently than that… free flow of news information, for many reasons, across the world… is often life and death.
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CODA
Billy Goat Gruff
You’ll remember from that ancient story told by the descendants of the Teutonic tribes… In my ethnic family from Eastern Europe, it was told this way: There was a Troll who lived under the bridge that had to be crossed to get to a wide green pasture. But the Troll demanded tribute from every creature who tried to cross. And while some could pay, most could not, and so were kept from the nourishment of the verdant pasture. Many starved…
Until one day came an old Billy Goat Gruff, who said, Troll, come out. I will not pay you. And the Troll leaped out in a rage, but did not imagine the agility and passion in the Goat, who tore out the Troll’s everything, leaving him just red strings and white bones. And ever after, the Goat ruled the bridge, allowing all peaceful creatures to pass and be nourished by the wide green pasture beyond.
Disclosure: One of my books, The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About that Which can Never Die, is pub’d by Harper, 1996.