Murdoch Vs ABC : Empire Falls

ABC boss Mark Scott is expected to return fire on the so-called "mounting criticism" (by Rupert Murdoch, primarily) of free state news media in a speech tonight :

"In newspapers, the Murdoch media empire has responded to the crisis of advertising by proposing to transform the online world in the same way that cable transformed television - by making consumers pay."

But what happens to quality journalism when its reach and audience are limited in this way; and what will Australians expect of the public broadcaster in the next decade?

Dave Gaukroger at Pure Poison :

This speech will be closely scrutinised by the ABC’s commercial rivals who are developing plans to place sections of their content behind paywalls in the hope of replacing revenue lost due to decreasing advertising rates and diminishing circulation. Both James and Rupert Murdoch have singled out public broadcasters as an impediment to their plans, not surprisingly it’s going to be hard for them to charge for content that organisations like the ABC and BBC are giving away for free.

On Twitter, Scott offers this short intro to his speech :

@abcmarkscott - Looking forward to the AN Smith tonight at Melbourne Uni. Here is where we start: http://bit.ly/2m86Ic

The link takes you to the poem, Fall Of Rome, by WH Auden :

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Hey! Not all bloggers live in caves. Some do, yes, but by choice.

At New Matilda, Jason Wilson takes a look at :

Murdoch's Chorus Of Complaint



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The Australian Tries To Stir Up Support For Murdoch's War On Free, State News Media

By Darryl Mason

From The Australian :



Criticism from who exactly?

Let's go to the story and take a look :

ABC managing director Mark Scott will this week attempt to hit back at mounting criticism...

note : "mounting criticism"

....of the public broadcaster's role in the internet space which commercial media companies say is threatening their business models.

So, the mounting criticism is coming from "commercial media companies."

Now there's a surprise.

The debate is heating up...

The debate is heating up in the pages of The Australian, who are now trying to convince an overwhelmingly skeptical public that they should pay to read Murdoch media news stories online.

The debate is heating up after Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation (owner of The Australian), again urged media companies to adopt online payment platforms for news at the World Media Summit in Beijing.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to creating a new model is taxpayer-funded content appearing free on websites such as those of the ABC and BBC.

Taxpayers getting their news for free from news sites that their taxes pay for? Fucking outrageous!

Rupert Murdoch is just plain terrified.

"We find ourselves in the midst of an information revolution that is both exciting and unsettling," Mr Murdoch said.

Anyone else feeling unsettled by this information revolution, by the greatest free exchange of information, art and knowledge in the history of mankind?

No?

Said Rupert Murdoch, who's now losing billions :

"The presses are now silent at some of the world's most famous newspapers -- they were supposed to report on their societies, but somehow failed to notice that those societies were changing fundamentally."

So this Great Media Visionary is telling us that newspapers are going out of business because they failed to notice the dramatic changes erupting across the societies they are reporting on?

What's the problem here? As Rupert Murdoch said back in 1989 :

"If someone goes bust, too bad."

Back to Digital Rupert 2.0 :

"The Philistine phase of the digital age is almost over."

Really? You think so?

"The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content," he said.

But will the Murdoch media pay for all for the content they "plagiarise" from other news media they do not own, along with the reams of content they find for free at Facebook and Twitter, and lift without credit from Digg, Reddit, TMZ and dozens of other independent blogs, aggregators and alternative news sites?

Fuck No.

Mr Murdoch said if media companies "do not take advantage of the current movement towards paid-for content, it will be the content creators....who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs will triumph".

I've written ("created") more than 2 million words of free-to-read blog content in the past four years (not including the content I've kleptomaniacised) and the only price I've paid is spending many hours doing something I love, making a whole lot of new friends and developing deep interests in subjects I probably would have never cared much about at all if I hadn't felt the drive to write about them here, and at Your New Reality.

Anyway, enough of Digital Rupert's hilariously 20th century opinions.

Let's get back to evidence of the "mounting criticism" as claimed by The Australian :

Chris Wharton, the chief executive of West Australian Newspapers, which is also examining online charging for its news, said the ABC was "the elephant in the room in this debate".

So, we've got Rupert Murdoch and Chris Wharton. And that's it.

The Murdoch media reports on "mounting criticism" coming mostly from Rupert Murdoch. The criticism is "mounting" because The Australian keeps reporting on Murdoch's criticism of free news media.

That's not a news story. It's corporate media PRganda.

Anyway, the ABC isn't the only Australian news media giant that intends to keep allowing readers and viewers to access its news content for free.

Mumbrella reveals that NineMSN has vowed to keep its news content free, as its hundreds of thousands of daily readers have come to expect.

NineMSN CEO Joe Pollard (excerpts from her blog statement) :

The debate over charging for online news content intensified again last week after a number of independent research studies showed this to be an immensely unfavorable strategy amongst those surveyed.

As Australia’s largest online publisher, ninemsn is frequently asked about our own business strategy when it comes to revenue generating streams for our news product. For the record, we do not intend to charge for our online news content.

As premium, innovative and differentiated as our news product is however, introducing a charge for our audience to consume it is just not part of ninemsn’s game plan…but nor is this really what the “paying for online news content” argument should be about anyway.

At ninemsn, we firmly believe an advertiser-funded model is what Australian audiences expect and accept when it comes to the consumption of online news....it’s a model that’s proven and tested…and if it continues to be available as professionally produced, freely and easily as it is now, audiences will continue to vote with their “feet”.

Charging audiences for online news content they can currently access for free is like putting a toll booth in the ocean…and it’s a big ocean.

And unfortunately for Rupert Murdoch, he's no longer the biggest fish. He's more like a lumbering whale being vigorously pursued by a million little fish, constantly nipping away, slowing him down, diluting his influence, subjugating his once formidable power and control.

Now that's a free media in action right there.

And something to be celebrated.

July 2, 2009 : John Hartigan's Idiotic Claim "Bloggers Don't Go To Jail" Becomes International News

August 2, 2009 : The Orstrahyun Hails Murdoch's 'Death To Free Information'
Movement

August 10, 2009 : Who Just Lost Another Few Billion Trying To Convince You That Celebrities Are Important And That People Who Don't Look Like You Can't Be Trusted?

Murdoch Media Asks : Michael Jackson, Not Dead?

September 17, 2009 : Rupert Murdoch Celebrates Death Of Newspapers : "It's Going To Be Great!"

The Orstrahyun Hails The Murdoch 'Death To Free Information' Movement

By Darryl Mason

Rupert Murdoch's News.com.au 'heralds' the end of Free News. Yeah, go away free information. How we hate you.




I'm as reluctant as The Professional Idiot and Tim "Immeasurable Hurt" Blair are to announce that soon you will have to pay to read this blog.

But you will.

I'm sorry, but days of Free Information are gone now.

Wake up to yourself. You know it's true. Rupert said so. Yes, he lost a couple of billion dollars, but so what? He's the Sun King.

Like Rupert's 'quality journalism', you will soon have to pay to read this blog.

Or I will no longer be able to bring infrequently posted, vaguely coherent, content before your eyeballs.

It's that simple.

So here's how The Orstrahyun 'You Will Pay!' business model will work :

1) I will data-mine any and all personal information I can find out about you, then I'll find out where you live.

2) I will turn up at your front door expecting a decent dinner (no vegan shit) at least twice a year. "My family's asleep" and "who the fuck are you?" will not be acceptable excuses for non-honourance of our verbital food-for-blog-stuff contract.

3) After dinner, you will only be allowed to show me holiday photos of places I haven't been, and you will accept that I can shout "Oh, Boring!" whenever I want to.

4) You will have to supply drinks before and after the dinner. You don't have to come on all flash. This is not a shakedown. Woodstock Bourbon & Cola in a can is fine, but if you're rich, you will be expected to break out the Wild Turkey Special Blend.

Death to Free News (And Blogs)!


And don't miss this. The Inquisitr has an hilarious story where a media buyer claims Murdoch is preparing to sue Google and Yahoo because their search engines drive traffic to Murdoch media sites. The bastards!


UPDATE : Only hours after Rupert Murdoch announces he wants to have a go at foolishly attempting to destroy the link-based free-sharing New Media culture by locking his content behind pay walls, Reuters announces that not only do they want independent bloggers, like me, to link to their news stories, they are also happy for bloggers to excerpt their news stories and build new content from it. As long as we all play fair.

Of course, compared to the bloated executive excesses of Murdoch's News, Reuters is a lean and mean operation. But they aren't taking a chance by encouraging bloggers to link to and share their content. They don't have a choice. Murdoch thinks he can still Own The News. He becomes more like Mister Burns every year.

Rupert Murdoch still doesn't get it. Reuters gets it.

So on day one of the New Murdoch 'You Will Pay!' Digital Media Reality, the legend of 20th century Old Media goes and gets trumped by Reuters, who clearly understand the way it has to be.

What a monumental fuckarama the rollout of Murdoch's 'You Will Pay!' new media devolution promises to be. It's a shame so many Australian employees will lose their jobs as the awful reality of Murdoch mega fail sinks in.

UPDATE : Success! My 'You Must Pay!' proposal to readers of The Ostrahyun is already showing results only a few hours after launching. I've now received twelve invitations to dinner via comments, Twitter (@darrylmason) and e-mail, in Sydney, Brisbane, Wyong, Adelaide, Cronulla, Melbourne, Baja California, Boston and Exeter, England. There was, however, a general reluctance to supply bourbon with the meals, but regardless....

I was wrong. The 'You Must Pay' system clearly works. Go for it, Rupert!


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