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BBC capitulation paves way for Murdoch web charge
Joy Johnson, CPBF national council and lecturer City University
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Emboldened by the BBC's capitulation to Rupert Murdoch with its commitment to slash the number of journalists employed providing content for its terrific website, he has done it: from June this year, The Times and The Sunday Times will no longer be free online. The BBC had acted as a barrier to Murdoch's ambitions to charge for the web. With the barrier breached others are waiting with baited breath to see if it will work.
Let's get one thing straight: the decline of newspaper sales is a structural problem – the internet is merely a component. As John Nichols has written in The Nation:"Blame has been laid first and foremost on the Internet, for luring away advertisers and readers, and on the economic meltdown, which has demolished revenues and hammered debt-laden media firms. But for all the ink spilled addressing the dire circumstance of the ink-stained wretch, the understanding of what we can do about the crisis has been woefully inadequate."
Charging for content is not the answer. While, unlike America, we have more of a spread of newspapers. The Guardian, albeit protected as it is from its Trust status, provides quality alternative coverage. Nevertheless as consumers of news we can ask why did our jonalists, with some honourable exceptions, fail so miserably in forecasting the global economic crisis? Could it be that it was in the media bosses' interests to go along with the orthodoxy of an unfettered free market?
Likewise the line on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was bought hook line and sinker with Murdoch's titles in particular all supporting the war.
There has been an economic decline in newspapers, there has also been a decline in content exacerbated by cost cutting in the number of journalists employed. Critical inquiry on the two of the defining issues of our times went absent without leave. Arguably, while newspapers become views papers, then people may want to pay for comment. The specialist information of, say the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, would be worth paying for.
But who under 30 is going to pay for general news? As the House of Lord select committee on communications reported:
"Younger people are less likely to read a newspaper than any other age group. The figures we [the select committee] commissioned from the National Readership Survey showed that overall the number of people reading any one or more of the top ten national newspapers on an average day has declined by 19% (between 1992-2006), but this decline is much more marked in the younger age brackets.
"The number of 15-24 year olds reading any one or more of the top ten national newspapers on an average day has declined by 37% and the number of 25-34 years olds doing the same has declined by 40%."
And young people, used as they are to free content online, won't start paying now.
This week has also seen another twist in media ownership with Andrei Lebdev buying the Independent. With perfect timing on the day Murdoch announces he is going to charge for website content it is being asked whether Mr Lebedev's Independent may follow the Evening Standard, and become a free-sheet. The Independent, despite Murdoch's predatory pricing that once was used to try and strangle competitors, survived.
And while at times it has had to cling on for dear life, it has survived through journalistic content that provides alternative opinions. Reform of media ownership is back on the agenda. Trying to get people to pay for content and access to information on the Internet is not the model we should be following.
Last modified: Friday, March 26, 2010
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Notices
Events & Announcements
World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
DOWNLOAD FREEPRESS NOW
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Download Freepress in PDF, ePub or mobi format. Issue 194 now available.
MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Papers from the Media for All Conference
MEDIA MANIFESTO
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The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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Previous stories
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