Comments on: Online pay battle: there’s no such thing a such a free …

By: Richard Murphy

Richard Murphy — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:28:15 +0000

The product of journalism is a big round nothing, like the cytosol of a cell or vacuole of a plant cell. Murdoch is counting on this ontological ‘nothing’ (as he sees it ideas/news are its inner transportation system) to flog his rapacious nihilism or nihilistic rapacity, takeyourpick. But the vacuole is a plant’s life support as is a human being’s value metaphysics. Murdoch is challenging us to prove we are more than the sum of our animal past. So who’s on the side of the angels?

By: Moira Smith

Moira Smith — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:23:57 +0000

PS and one of the must-see TV programs in this household is “Jim Lehrer’s News Hour” presented by the American PBS and relayed to us by SBS. It gives us in-depth, considered, news and analysis of USA and world affairs five days a week. Unfortunately it moves around from 4.30 to 5pm and probably isn’t available to most working Crikey readers but the website is a good resource with video replays.

By: Moira Smith

Moira Smith — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:10:09 +0000

Margaret Simons writes, re ABC and SBS:

‘it could be said that both public broadcasters are vulnerable if the justification for their existence is based on arguments of social equity.’

What’s inequitable about having 7, 9 and 10 catering broadcasting Australian Idol, Today Tonight, Current Affair plus endless consequitive repeats of American sit-coms, etc while the ABC and SBS present - on the whole - the current affairs programs, documentaries, movies, and dramas that I prefer?

To put it another way - where’s the social equity in having a whole slew of television stations broadcasting nothing that I want to watch? Or, starting to broadcast them (eg great HBO type American stuff like West Wing) and then, because they don’t prove ‘popular’, messing about with the scheduling so that in the end I am forced to wait until the DVD set is available at the local video rental store so I can see the whole thing properly?

After all, I am a member of society too!

Therefore, I agree with Margaret’s assertion that ‘public broadcasters can and should play a real role in making sure that news and information is available to all’ and I’d add here good drama and etc.

By: jerryk

jerryk — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:27:26 +0000

Oh Dear. I think they used to be called periodicals.

Strange how Fairfax’s experiment - http://www.afr.com doesn’t rate a mention in this discussion. They took the country’s leading financial newspaper behind a paywall and the result is ….. Surely the most relevant case study in this discussion.

One of the mysteries of Australian webspace as if it just vanished and noone, especially Fairfax, wants to talk about it.

By: Richard Murphy

Richard Murphy — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:37:48 +0000

Agree about the current price. If Murdoch’s digital Satanic mills do attract subscribers at least we will know where all the orcs are. He’s due for a heart attack in 2013.

By: Peter Bayley

Peter Bayley — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:42:15 +0000

Rupert berates Google for “stealing” his stories - but Google is simply an indexing service - the stories it finds and indexes link to News Ltd pages bulging with News Limited advertising - so Rupert benefits. If Rupert really wanted to stop the theft, he could simply tell the Google “robot” not to index any content - but, as Rupert knows, that would drastically lower the number of “hits” (and Advertising eyeballs) on his own News Ltd pages.

I am happy (older male etc) to pay for my daily dose of the Crikey view and I value it because it has its own, different, take on things compared to the normal crowd of aggregators (twenty web sites with the same story word for word). I’m in a nerdish business and so SlashDot and NewScientist give me similar, refreshing heads up on things nerdy and sciency.

If Rupert puts up new content and asks us to pay for it (although I can’t help but wonder what the ads are meant to be doing) then I will examine the content and act based on whether I perceive it to be of value. Judging by most of the current News Limited content, I think the current price ($0.00) is about right.