Sunday, April 5, 2009

Murdoch: Pimpin' Papers is Preferable


First let me say that I find the above cartoon completely hilarious....and oh, so, so, so sad.
But, on to the blog!
News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch was recently quoted as saying that U.S. newspapers need to begin charging for online content if they wish to survive.
Sorry Ru, but in my opinion, it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too late for this.
To support my point, let me tell a quick story: I was sitting next to one of my journalism professors in a digital media workshop on Friday when, in reference to blogging and other types of on-line indy journalism, he said, "I just can't get used to the idea of giving it away for free. I mean, we're not even whoring it out. We're total sluts."
It's a beautiful analogy.
Changing to charging for newspaper content at this point, is pointless and won't work.
To bring it to the gutter a bit more, let me pose a question: How in the world are we going to go from being total sluts to being top-notch call girls? As good as our "content" might be, most people are not going to start paying for it when they've been getting it for free for oh so long.
Still, Murdoch, the King of Media, is trying to rouse a rebellion against search engines
Questioning whether the newspaper industry should continue to allow online news aggregators, like Google, to aggregate newspaper content without being compensated for it, Murdoch basically said "Hell No!" at a recent cable news industry gathering.
Seriously Ru?....can they?
I doubt it.

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