Charging for content will be a huge failure for the media

More and more news sites are thinking about charging for content. The newspaper industry is looking at dwindling circulation and assuming that their growing online readership will provide the path to profitability. They might be right, but they are heading in the wrong direction.

Online news sites benefit from type-in traffic and links from sites like Yahoo, Google, and the Drudge Report. Once sites require subscriptions, those links will disappear, along with the resulting traffic. What they’ll be left with is a small group of loyal readers willing to pay a reasonable fee for news that they could readily read at one of several free web sites. Let’s also remember that those links provided by news aggregators brought in visitors who clicked ads. When the traffic goes down, the ad revenue will probably follow. After all, do you want to advertise on a site that isn’t viewed much in comparison to its peers? » read more

Patrick Kennedy critiques the media

Let’s get this straight: Patrick Kennedy thinks the United States should leave Afghanistan and allow it to sink into even greater chaos? Sharp guy.

The global warming cult silences the media

Watching how climate researchers have handled themselves during climategate has made me reflect on my own scientific training. One way in which science is advanced is buying questioning what was done before. Such questions shouldn’t be taken personally. They should be seen as an attempt to find “the truth” and further the field of study. Any disagreements can be refuted by citing past research, or by conducting further studies. Unfortunately, professor Stephen Schneider, a climate researcher at Stanford, doesn’t seem to have this basic understanding.

While speaking at a press conference at the climate summit in Copenhagen, a film-maker asked him some questions he wasn’t comfortable answering. The proper thing to do would have been to answer his questions, seeing as though it was a press conference, then use scientific findings to support his claims. Instead of taking this scholarly high road, Professor Schneider’s associates had armed U.N. guards remove the questioner from the premises and ordered his cameraman to stop filming. Here is the exchange caught on tape: » read more

“Law & Order’s” lies

On a recent episode of “Law & Order,” the show’s liberal bias was once again on display. In an episode which dealt with illegal immigration, a character made this assertion:

“Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, all of ‘em, they are like a cancer spreading ignorance and hate…They’ve convinced folks that immigrants are the problem, not corporations that fail to pay a living wage or a broken health care system…”

So, if you are to believe Dick Wolfe and those on the “Law & Order” team, anyone who believes the United States has the right to determine who can or cannot enter the country is spreading ignorance and hate. If you mention that illegal aliens are taking jobs and bringing down wages, you’re spreading ignorance and hate. » read more

Rupert Murdoch is half right

I’m glad to see Rupert Murdoch come out so strongly against government intervention in the media. Some lawmakers have suggested that the media might need government assistance due to the effect of the internet on the changing industry. One idea involved converting newspapers to nonprofit organizations. Murdoch is right to criticize these types of ideas, along with regulations which prevent companies from owning newspapers and TV stations in the same market. It’s funny how government hampers competition, then offers a bailout of sorts.

Besides government intervention, Murdoch once again commented on the future on online media. Specifically mentioning the “theft” of material by aggregators, and the failure of the current business mode. Murdoch has recently stated his intention to move to a subscription service, and there have been rumors about removing Newscorp’s sites from Google and providing exclusive access to Bing (for a price, of course). For as right as Rupert Murdoch is on government intervention, he is wrong about his ideas for the future of media. » read more

The partnership between Microsoft and News Corp seems odd

Sometimes, I feel like I’m missing something. As a blog owner, I like writing, and I like having people read what I write. You might notice that many blogs also advertise. Even though the typical blogger doesn’t make much money from their posts, some bloggers do quite well financially. Since advertising a blog can be costly, the dream is to get good placement in the results of the major search engines. Normally, high traffic can mean high revenue, while reduced traffic can mean less revenue. That’s why News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch has me puzzled.

There’s no doubt that Rupert Murdoch is a bright, successful guy. That’s why his latest idea seems to be risky: Removing all of his newspapers from Google’s index. News Corp owns well-known newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and The Sun. Murdoch seems to feel that Google is unfairly benefiting from News Corp’s content. In the past, Murdoch had mentioned ending their use of a free model and going to a subscription format. Now, another plan may have surfaced. » read more

Barack Obama vs. Fox News

In a perfect world, the media would be 100% unbiased. They would cover every important story appropriately without prejudice and never bury some stories and over-emphasize others. They would approach each topic with indifference, in order to let readers come to their own conclusions. They would exist solely to gather and distribute information without any agenda other than the desire to have an informed citizenry. That should be the goal, but it is far from the reality.

I enjoy watching Fox News, but it certainly isn’t “fair and balanced,” as the network claims. There is certainly a conservative slant that cannot be denied. I hear this mentioned frequently, but what I don’t hear mentioned often is the liberal bias demonstrated by MSNBC. They behave exactly like Fox News. They just do so at the opposite end of the political spectrum. » read more