Weird Scenes Inside The Murdoch News Mines

By Darryl Mason

News Limited executive editor (does that mean he just gets a nicer chair?) Alan Howes explains how the Murdoch tabloids act as "the watchdog" of modern politics (Headline : Taking A Rude Joy In Kicking The Watchdog) in this lovely piece of corporate propaganda, distributed widely, of course, across the Digital Rupert media landscape :

NEWSPAPERS easily make friends and enemies.

The friends are mostly readers, and mostly voiceless, but for the role a newspaper can play in representing their interests. The enemies are almost always powerful.

A key function of a thinking newspaper, like ours, is to snap at the heels of our elected governments and their appointed officials.

Yeah, woof woof, we get it.

That puts you onside with readers - whose only chance of directly expressing an opinion might come every election.

Unless they can write letters, protest, stage boycotts, type in comments on a multitude of news blogs and 'comment now' news stories, make phone calls to radio stations begging for talkbackers to call in, attend local political events where politicians are present, or use Twitter, Facebook and e-mail. Just how many housebound, illiterate readers with no access to modern communications or electricity do Murdoch tabloids have?

Alan Howe is one of those believers in The Right To Know. Except when it comes to knowing too much about the Murdoch media.

More than a few of them have been calling for an inquiry into Australia's media. If that threat sounds familiar, it should: We had the Norris Inquiry in 1981, a Working Party into Print Media Ownership in 1990 and, later, the Print Media Inquiry that spanned two years.

There's only been three inquiries into the Australian media in three decades? Only three? Is that all?

Perhaps Alan Howe is quietly terrified that many of his newspapers' readers would like to see the 2012 media inquiry televised, like the WaterGate hearings, particularly if a string of Australian celebrities and former politicians are willing to speak out on how their privacy was violated.

And to prove that the biggest bitches in the media have, in fact, always been male tabloid newspaper editors, Alan Howe takes on his critics :

Victorian Labor backbencher Steve Gibbons (who is he?)...

...dangerously thoughtless Greens Senator Christine Milne...

We should all be concerned about thoughtless dangerousness, too.

... NSW Labor MP John Murphy (doesn't ring a bell)

Oh, snap Alan. You nasty.

And of former Murdoch-league media mogul and competitor Conrad Black, News Limited executive editor Alan Howe has this to say :

Ironically, sodomy is no doubt often on the menu at Florida's Coleman Correctional Complex, where (Conrad Black) returns next month to serve out the rest of his sentence for fraud and obstruction of justice.

Prison rape is what Murdoch critics deserve, apparently.

Anyway, watchdogs.

Two of Australia's keenest Murdoch tabloid watchdogs gleefully discuss the new hairstyle of the former NSW premier :






Andrew Bolt :

Letting her hair down in Opposition. Well, letting someone’s hair down.

As they say, me-ow.

Just form a knitting circle or something.

Great Minds Think Alike, On Wanking

When Daily Telegraph journalist Tim Blair isn't too busy thrillingly pointing out basic typos in independent media (with a fraction of the editorial staff of his own newspaper), he apparently borrows headlines from the New York Post, without credit.

Tim Blair, May 14. 4pm :

Osama’s bin wankin’. The Taliban tugman probably feasted upon delicious forbidden infidel food, too.

The New York Post, at least 10 hours earlier* :



Probably just a coincidence.

*corrected

UPDATE : A few hours after the above was posted, Blair acknowledges this remarkable coincidence : "Not for the first time, me and (NY Post editor) Col Allan are on the same wavelength."

So Blair, according to his own post, checked the reaction of New York Times to the alleged discovery of a Bin Laden hideout 'porn stash' but didn't bother to see what his mate, and fellow Murdoch employee, Col Allan, had come up with on such a dream Osama tabloid story? That sounds realistic.

Researching the Australian conservative media campaign to rally support for the Iraq War back in 2002 - for onscreen quotes and the Notes section of the coming FTW : The Movie DVD and download - it's mind-boggling how many pro-war campaigners actively played down the chances of Iraq erupting into any kind of post-invasion chaos. Even more noticeably, back in 2002, pro-war media campaigners repeatedly, vehemently, ridiculed claims that more than 100,000 troops would be needed to fight the war, or that it would cost more than a few dozen billion dollars in total.

In playing down the real risks of starting a war in Iraq, some pro-war campaigners in the media said 50,000 troops would be enough, some said 20,000, but there was only one who said the War On Iraq would require less than 100 American troops.

The Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair :

John Hawkins: If and when do you see the United States hitting Iraq? How do you think it'll work out?

Tim Blair: It all depends on Iraq’s fearsome Elite Republican Guard. Why, those feisty desert warriors could hold out for minutes. Dozens of US troops will be required. Perhaps they’ll even need their weapons...Wouldn’t expect it to last long once it happens.

When asked to predict a casualty count for the invasion, Blair predicted :

"Below 50."

The Republican Guard began killing American soldiers with car bombs and IEDs the day Coalition of the Willing troops entered Baghdad. Civilians, trained by Saddam Hussein through TV broadcasts in the construction of improvised weapons and explosives, joined in the fighting.

Within twelve days of President Bush announcing the start of the illegal bombing, invasion and occupation of Iraq, more than 60 American soldiers had been killed and more than 200 wounded.

Tim Blair joins the FTW Dishonour Roll.

Why do Australian male conservative commentators hate on female politicians when they glam up, but fawn over the perpetually nearly-nude Tony Abbott?

For non-Australian readers, this is Kate Ellis, Federal Minister for Youth & Sport.

The Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt on Ellis : "thick head."

The Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair on Ellis : "She looks like an East German gymnast"

Maybe they prefer their politicians in high heels to look like this instead?

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"Journalists Suing Journalists....Is Graceless & Weird"

In follow-up to this post about the downright sad and pathetic legal battle that sees Daily Telegraph blogger Tim Blair suing Crikey bloggers for defamation, here's Blair writing about talkback host Steve Price successfully suing Crikey founder Stephen Mayne for defamation back in 2002 :

"...leaving aside the matter of journalists suing journalists, which is graceless and weird, Price took this action – at a cost to himself of $150,000 – to restore his reputation. But has his reputation been restored? Most journalists I've spoken to today believe the opposite."

Graceless and weird, indeed.

(via @cosmicjester)


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Tim Blair Vs Crikey : Stupid Blog War Now Wasting NSW Supreme Court's Time

By Darryl Mason

Apparently he decided to only go after those he thinks he might actually get money from, if he wins :

(Daily Telegraph associate editor and blogger) Tim Blair is now suing Eric Beecher's Private Media, publisher of the website crikey.com.au, in the NSW Supreme Court for defamation. He is understood to want tens of thousands of dollars because of the damage to his reputation.

Damage to his reputation? I thought his reputation as a journalist was damaged almost beyond repair years before when he and his gormless commenters spent months attacking the character and motivations of an American mother whose young soldier son died in the Iraq War....

More from Sean Nicholls & Jessica Mahar :

....the Diary understands the trouble began when one of Crikey's bloggers noticed that the IP address - or computer identification number - of one of the people commenting on Blair's blog was identical to Blair's own IP address. In effect, the blogger wrote, Blair was so hard up for comments to his blog that he had resorted to writing his own comments, under another name. It sparked almost a year of demands by Blair, through his lawyers, that Crikey atone for what he says is a false accusation. While the blogger published an apology of sorts early in the piece, Blair was unsatisfied because he thought it repeated the alleged defamation. A couple of weeks ago he took the matter to court.

Here's the (now deleted) early March 2009 apology from Crikey's Pure Poison that failed to repair the immeasurable hurt allegedly caused :

Correction and apology to Tim Blair

In a post last night titled “Sockpuppet Worn” it was suggested that enthusiastic Pure Poison critic “WB"....had been making comments from Tim Blair’s private IP adress. The post, now removed from the Crikey site, included speculation on the identity of WB, concluding that it was Blair. Tim denies this flatly, and notes that people in the same house would share an IP. Commenters to the original deleted post had also made that point. We don’t know any more than that WB comments from the same private IP. Our criticisms are reserved for whoever “WB” turns out to be. We unreservedly withdraw any allegation that Tim has been using the “WB” identity, that he had personally used this identity to artificially boost his “hits”, and apologise for any offence caused by the above.

Blair's Law appears to be true, after all.

No typing cats were harmed, immeasurably or otherwise, in the posting of this story.

Journalists Suing Journalist (Or Bloggers Suing Bloggers) Is "Graceless & Weird"

UPDATE : Sorry, all comments are closed on this blog for the moment. I'm guessing you can understand why.

Lit My Knnow If I Mussed Any Tyypos

Tim Blair, an editor for the Daily Telegraph, spots a typo (!) in The Age, while once again missing typo incidents in his own newspaper's online front page.

In the big box lead story no less :



It's not the first time this kind of thing has happened.

Nor did he notice a columnist for his newspaper fabricated a quote from a book he hasn't read.

But, to his credit, he has been busy lately....

* Checking the fashion choices of visiting celebrities.

* Mocking a scientist who became suicidal after death threats and emails telling him to go kill himself.

* And calling avid gamers "sad case" people, while claiming millions of Australian "gamers" have been "gamed" because a 24 year old (who he needed to highlight "still lives with his parents") has been fined $1.5 million for illegally uploading an old Mario game to a file sharing site.

Bagging gamers. That should prove very popular with the over-50s.


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Now Much Easier To Ignore

The Daily Telegraph moves with the social networking times and replaces this blog click-thru box on its digital front page...



With this :



The TB Appreciation Society on Facebook has 21 members.



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Whales To Show Appreciation For Being Saved From Japanese Harpoons With Ceremonial Mass Beaching

The Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair on the latest whale-related fundraising promotion by depopulationist Paul Watson :

The notion that the 491-ton Shonan Maru 2 – maximum speed 12 knots – could outmanoeuvre a 13-ton, 45-knot trimaran like the Ady Gil is insane, but the media seem to be buying it.

Note, Blair doesn't name 'the media' who seem to be "buying it".

Why?

From the Daily Telegraph online :



That's why.

This is standard operation procedure for Blair.

If the Sydney Morning Herald or the ABC promote someone like Sea Shithead's Paul Watson, who wants to see the world's population reduced to less than 1 billion people, then he and his droogies will go to town on the "leftist" Herald and gronk about privatising the ABC, but when his own newspaper leaps onto the latest eco-clickbait bandwagon, well, the Daily Telegraph becomes simply "the media".


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Is Tim Blair now editing for Fox News?



Tim Blair notes an Associated Press timeline of key dates in what it calls the History Of Global Warming.....



....and Blair invites readers "to submit their own key dates in warming history". Here's an important date the AP didn't include in that timeline, one Blair would rather not remind his readers of :

May, 2007 - Rupert Murdoch instructs shareholders and his newspaper and TV news editors that "climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats". Climate change tabloid fearmongery explodes across Murdoch's world media empire, as Murdoch pledges to create "carbon neutral" workplaces for all his journalists.

Meanwhile, some boring academic guy tries to use facts and science to debunk ClimateGate :





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Why Are Murdoch Journalists Who Claim "Global Warming Is A Lefty Scam" So Afraid To Confront Or Challenge The 'Climate Change Propaganda' Of Their Own Boss?

By Darryl Mason

A collection of quotes from Rupert Murdoch on Climate Change and Corporate Green brainwashing via his massive world media empire :

"Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats. We may not agree on the extent, but we certainly can't afford the risk of inaction.

"We're starting with our own carbon footprint. Not nothing. But much of what we're doing is already, or soon will be, little more than the standard way of doing business. We can do something that's unique, different from just any other company. We can set an example, and we can reach our audiences. Our audience's carbon footprint is 10,000 times bigger than ours. That's the carbon footprint we want to conquer."

"Becoming carbon neutral is only the beginning. The climate problem will not be solved by one company reducing its emissions to zero, and it won't be solved by one government acting alone. The climate problem will not be solved without mass participation by the general public in countries around the globe."

"Imagine if we succeed in inspiring our audiences to reduce their own impacts on climate change by just one percent. That would be like turning the State of California off for almost two months."

"News Corporation, today, reaches people at home and at work... when they're thinking... when they're laughing... and when they are making choices that have enormous impact. The unique potential.. and duty.. of a media company are to help its audiences connect to the issues that define our time."

"We need to push ourselves to make as many reductions as possible in our own energy use first.. and that takes time. But we must do this quickly.. the climate will not wait for us."

"While we reduce our own carbon footprint we will encourage the companies who truck our DVDs and newspapers, sell us paper, and provide an enormous range of products and services.. to all contribute."

"Some of our businesses use more energy than others, but our strategy everywhere is the same.. first, reduce our use of energy as much as possible. Then, switch to renewable sources of power where it makes economic sense. And, over time, as a last resort, offset the emissions we can't avoid."

"We could make a difference just by holding our emissions steady as our businesses continue to grow. But that doesn't seem to be enough: we want to go all the way to zero. Today, I am announcing our intention to be carbon neutral, across all our businesses, by 2010."

"We're not a manufacturer, or an airline, but we do use energy. Printing and publishing newspapers, producing films, broadcasting television signals, operating 24-hour newsrooms. It all adds carbon to the atmosphere."

"Climate change and energy use are global problems. News Corp is a global company. Our operations affect the environment all over the world."

"I have to admit that, until recently, I was somewhat wary of the (global) warming debate. I believe it is now our responsibility to take the lead on this issue."

Murdoch journalists like Tim Blair, Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman, all well know that their own boss is the world's most influential distributor of what they call "global warming fearmongery", but they'd prefer their readers to get all shouty and hepped up about Tim Flannery and Al Gore and the ABC instead.

Why? Because they know if they did go after Rupert Murdoch's "climate change catastrophe" fearmongery, with the same venom and repetition that they go after scientists and academics and celebrity activists, they'd get fired.

Their silence, and credibility, has been brought. Willingly. Without a fight.

If Blair, Bolt and Akerman truly believe that climate change and carbon neutrality is now being used to introduce 'World Government' then why are they still taking money from Rupert Murdoch?


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Blair's Law RIP : 2002-2009

In 2002, pro-Bush, and enthusiastic pro-Bush Wars, blogger Tim Blair founded the term 'Blair's Law'. It caused brief excitement in the American pro-Bush blogstream, and was defined in the Urban Dictionary as :

"...the ongoing process by which the world's multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force."

But in June 2009, the Urban Dictionary listed a new definition, and notes, for Blair's Law :

From The Urban Dictionary :

Blair's Law : As a blog war intensifies, the probability of lawyers being called in to protect the glass jaw of the more cowardly party approaches 1.

– Inspired by the precedent set by the aborted 2009 defamation case of (Australian journalist/blogger) Tim Blair vs Teh Left.

TB: “My girlfriend’s been fighting all my battles for me under a pseudonym, but we got caught out and now my tough-guy reputation is in tatters. How am I going to weasel my way out of this one?”

JB: “Only Blair's law can save you now, my chinless friend.”

However, if you Google 'Blair's Law' and click the Urban Dictionary link, you will find all definitions and even the listing itself has been deleted.

Disappeared.

Instead, you are taken to the Urban Dictionary listing for former British prime minister, Tony Blair.

Online fame can be so fleeting.

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Murdoch Media : How To Spot A Global Warming 'Conspiracy Theorist'


image sourced from here

From news.com.au :

Global Warming conspiracy theory

This theory claims the science behind current environmental changes - as popularised by Al Gore in the film An Inconvenient Truth - was created for financial gain.

Some believe that governments are using the global warming "myth" to raise taxes and restrict competitive US businesses in Europe - or that it is a United Nations ploy to create a one-world government.

Now you know.

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Just Blame A Typing Cat

Hold the presses, associate editor of The Daily Telegraph, and hilarious failed litigant, Tim Blair, finds a spelling mistake on Twitter!

Deep thinking from Antony Loewenstein:

The thought of telling Israel what to do is plesant and necessary

Antony Loewenstein failed to insert the letter 'a' into the word 'pleasant'. Yes, isn't that exciting?

In part due to the very restrictive 140 character limit per post, Twitter is often a correct spelling, good grammar and even basic punctuation free zone. The information, the link, the joke, the snark, the insight, the trivial detail, the content of the brief comment, is all that matters, as all the established rules of the English language can be, and most often are, casually cast aside so as to fit the comment inside that tight character limit. Finding spelling mistakes on Twitter is piss easy. Too easy.  

Almost as easy as finding a spelling mistake on the Daily Telegraph website.

So while Tim Blair was busy stalk-trawling Antony Loewenstein for inconsequential spelling mistakes on Twitter (where Blair doesn't have an active account, at least not one under his own name) this doozy appeared in the first line of the first story on the front page of The Daily Telegraph, where Blair is, of course, an editor :

The Hurt of being "knocked bledding to the ground", you'd have to imagine, would be Immeasurable.

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Just Another Journalist Who Wants 9/11 Victims' Families To Shut Up

By Darryl Mason

President George W. Bush, November 10, 2001 :

“Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September 11.”

Daily Telegraph associate editor, Tim Blair, marked the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on Washington DC and New York City with this remarkably weak and predictably puerile smearing of those who hold doubts about the official Bush White House 9/11 conspiracy theory :

When someone starts in on that stuff, it's time to leave the room. "Truthers", as they are known, hold two mutually-exclusive beliefs: That the Bush administration was run by morons and that it pulled off the greatest conspiracy of all time. Truthers are spectacular idiots.

Here are some of the people utterly incurious journalists like Tim Blair think are "spectacular idiots" for demanding a new investigation into the events of September 11, 2001, and for those in the Bush administration who failed to protect Americans that day to be held to account :



Ten Australians died in the 9/11 attacks. Some of those victims' friends and relatives have their doubts about the Bush White House official version of events. Considering the abuse dished out by journalists like Tim Blair towards other 9/11 victims' family members, you can understand their reluctance in going public with their doubts.


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Law Changed

Blair's Law used to mean :

"the ongoing process by which the world's multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force."

But according to the Urban Dictionary, Blair's Law now means :

As a blog war intensifies, the probability of lawyers being called in to protect the glass jaw of the more cowardly party approaches 1.

– Inspired by the precedent set by the aborted 2009 defamation case of (Australian journalist/blogger) Tim Blair vs Teh Left.

Aborted? Must be why I only got the one letter demanding compensation for causing "immeasurable hurt". I was hoping to collect the whole set.

More from the Urban Dictionary on Blair's Law :

TB: “My girlfriend’s been fighting all my battles for me under a pseudonym, but we got caught out and now my tough-guy reputation is in tatters. How am I going to weasel my way out of this one?”

JB: “Only Blair's law can save you now, my chinless friend.”

WB: “Jeez!”

And that's enough of all that.

Well Fuck Off Somewhere Else Then

What sort of unpatriotic scumbags viciously denounce their own country, and the Australian people, when we're at war?

Tim Blair's kind of scumbags :

"I’m at the end of my tether with this spineless, formerly great nation."

"Go to buggery, fascist nannies! It's a big interferring Orwellian government. The only choice will be which arm you want the microchip in."

"I find myself hating this nation and detesting its inhabitants more every day."

You're undermining the troops you rancid vermin.

These kind of Australia Haters should be watched closely, if they hate Australia that much they might be capable of anything.

Doesn't all that sound so familiar?

Paywalls For Murdoch Bloggers?

"No. NO. N.O. Nope. Nah. Never. Ever."

By Darryl Mason

Yesterday, we had a look at the responses in comments at Andrew Bolt's blog to the announcement that Digital Rupert wants everyone to start paying to read his 'quality journalism', and presumably blogs as well.

Murdoch wants his star online writers to pay their way now, they have to prove their worth by showing that they have plenty of loyal readers who will fork over some cash to get access to their thoughts and insights and research.

When The Professional Idiot asked, whaddayathink? 99% of Boltoids responded "No!"

In short, the 'Step One : Gauge Public Reaction' exercise in slowly introducing thousands of Andrew Bolt readers to the 'You Will Pay!' model was a Total Fucking Disaster.

So then Tim Blair, casual blogger at the Daily Telegraph, took a shot at finding out if his readers will now pay for what they've been reading for years online for free.

According to Blair, the installation of pay walls across the Digital Rupert empire....

....might happen more rapidly than people expect. You all up for payin’?

Cue a Total Fucking Disaster Part 2 as dozens of Blair's most dedicated readers and commenters, those expected by Digital Ruper executives to be the likeliest to pay, crush dreams of healthily profitable blogging :

"The short answer is: never. I’ve never paid for on-line content and never will."

"Nope."

"No."

"No."

"Sorry, not paying. Ever."

"You all up for payin’? No."

"tell ‘em their dreaming."

"NO There are plenty of other free sites around."

"People won’t pay. They just won’t. It may suck, but there it is."

"I’d be disappointed if I was asked to pay for access to a blog and probably wouldn’t, with all due respects to your talents, Tim."

"No."

"Hell no"

"Nice blog you’ve got here, Tim. Pity if something should happen to it."

And my favourite :

"I’m getting a very strong 'Super League' vibe about this whole idea."

After dozens of utterly negative comments towards the possibility of Blair stepping behind a pay wall in Digital Rupert's NewsOTainment Online Fortress, Blair's very good friend 'WB' dropped by and, what a shock, announced that 'You Will Pay!' is damn good idea, actually :

"The point for Rupert I guess is that ad revenue is just not enough.

....he’s having to turn his mind to charging and I am having to turn my mind to paying for the content I access multiple times daily and currently for no more than my ISP and mobile phone charges.

I love online content. It rocks for the most part. And I think it has value that should be paid for to the authors and creators of it. So I kind of hope Rupert gets this up..."

'WB' was all but a lone voice backing 'You Will Pay!' in all those pages of negative comments :

"No. N.O. Hell, no."

"You all up for payin’? Nope!"

"Ha! Dream on."

"You all up for payin’?"

"Nope"

Tim Blair has the same fundamental problem that Andrew Bolt has. Their thousands of readers might yet come round to the idea of paying something each month or year to read their blogs, with plenty of incentives, but they most certainly will not pay while Bolt and Blair remain a part of the Digital Rupert empire.

Many Blair and Bolt readers have no love or loyalty for Murdoch, and they don't appear interested in the rest of Digital Rupert's world of content. They don't want their money being used by the Daily Telegraph and Courier Mail to denigrate society with celebrity porn filth and art wank, helping to fund the cursed leftie Obama & Al Gore faithful cheer squads they appear to believe have infested the news rooms of virtually all the Australian news media.

For someone who was in the vanguard of Australian bloggers back in the dark and turgid days of the early 2000s, this must be quite a monumental moment for Tim Blair. It's certainly an extremely significant event in the history of Australian blogging, for professional bloggers to turn to their audiences and hold out a permanent begging bowl.

But can the 'You Will Pay!' model be made to work?

The very concept of a blog has to change. It can't just be a text blog anymore. A 'You Will Pay!' site built around one journalist, or opinionist, will have to thumping with content, video, audio, decent search engines to trawl the archives, and plenty more to turn something that was free into something that costs money.

No readers of any Australian blogs seem to like the idea of the blogs they like being moved behind pay walls, and why should they? It clearly means a lot less other readers and commenters. The community of readers built up around a blog with lively comment threads will always be decimated by the shift from free to pay for access.

Like bloggers, prolific and verbose commenters love to know that the blog that they're spending time and thought commenting at is actually being read by more than a few dozen, or a few hundred, people.

These commenters like the big audience that a Bolt or Blair blog site provides. They're not going to have that behind pay walls. They know that. As many at Bolt and Blair's blogs have already pointed out, a 'You Wil Pay!' blog becomes like a private club, with limited attendance, and the same old people coming back every day until the club closes due to extreme boredom.

Seriously, what's the point of dropping landmine comments at Digital Rupert blogs baiting Stupid Lefties by claiming they frothingly fantasise about a four-way with Hitler, Stalin and Mao, if a pay wall means that no Stupid Lefties will be reading such witty utterances?

And to top it all off, there will also be no more anonymous or alias-only commenting under the Digital Rupert New Media Order. Tim Blair is also preparing his readers for that alarming prospect.

Regardless of whether pay walls go up around the Blair & Bolt blogs, a Digital Rupert ID system for commenting is on the cards. Digital Rupert wants to data-mine readers and give the information culled from registrations to advertisers and marketers. It's all part of the Digital Rupert strategy to allow advertisers to "target you across multiple platforms". Sounds painful.

To finish, another sampling of the 100-plus negative comments Blair received when he dared to ask his readers, folksy-style, "You all up for payin'?":

"Nope. Two things I would never pay for - and online news is one of them."

"Tim - I’m also going to have to say no. Sorry."

"I’m afraid not, Tim. For all the reasons listed above."

"You all up for payin’? HAHAHAHA......HAHAHAHAH....GASP.... HAHAHAH wait, you’re serious? nope"

"The concept of having to pay to read this blog is very amusing."

There's a lot of Murdoch execs, and journalists, who can't see the funny side of the prickly predicament they're now in.

A media empire is crumbling, gushing billions, losing audiences, and perhaps most crushingly for Rupert Murdoch himself, Losing Influence. Murdoch lost truckloads of money keeping The Australian in production through the 1980s and 1990s because he knew he could influence and control the government of the day with a national broadsheet read by the country's most powerful business leaders, politicians and ruling classes. Those days are over.

To save his fortune and his business, Murdoch will dare to lose one million online free readers to suck some bucks from 1000 who are willing to pay.

These are desperate end days for the Murdoch media empire.

Murdoch has to find readers who will pay. Millions of them around the world to stem the massive losses, even after he shuts down the printing presses for the last time.

And where are all these people who will pay to read what they used to get for free?

Nobody seems to know yet.

Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt went looking and they certainly couldn't find any.

Except for 'WB' of course.

Go Here For More Stories On Digital Rupert, Paywalls And The Fall Of Newspapers

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Enjoy It While It's Still Free

This is the sort of deep, probing illumination you will soon have to pay to be dazzled by. Tim Blair :

"over-reacting and behaving unjustly"....It's almost a definition of terrorism.

If you say so.

Old Media Already Suing Bloggers For Linking

By Darryl Mason

If a Daily Telegraph blogger allowed the following violence soaked comment to remain on his personal blog site for a couple of years, all of it posted under your name, even when that blogger knows you didn't write it, and even when asked nicely that blogger refuses to remove it or post an apology, what would you do?

Would you try to take legal action to get compensation for any "immeasurable hurt" that might be caused by this filth remaining online under your name?

Killing Howard is laudable. Killing his cabinet got to be OK too. Killing members of the Liberal party - that has to be a plus, surely. And what about the Nationals? We’ll kill them too. They helped keep Howard in power. And Family First, slit their throats. And what about other Christians, they are conservative and probably voted Liberal. Best kill all them along with small businessmen. There is a real hotbed of Liberal sentiment among these fascist businessmen. Don’t forget the Jews, the money grubbing bastards. They have to be next. Then there are those class traitors, the workers who voted Liberal. Kill them all. Purge the public service of suspected Liberal sympathisers too. That teacher over there. He’s wearing a tie so he must be a conservative. String him up. Hey, that guy’s got an American accent. Slaughter him and his baby too. It’s in their genes, you know. It’s a lot of people to be massacred but it will reduce greehouse gases in the long run.
Darryl Mason

The rest of the story explaining the headline, and the necessary sockpuppetry-related context, is here :

A Long Overdue Update To An Earlier Post About Online Fakery And Cats That Can Type (And Sushi Chefs That Don't Exist)


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