Murdoch sits down to discusss charging for online news

Ol' Rupert seems to be everywhere at the moment, banging on about charging for online content. In an interview with Sky, who of course he owns, he discusses why he will be charging for online news. This media mogal's arguments don't even make any sense. Asked about Google's argument that they drive traffic to News Corp sites, he says yes but only the one page. And when asked if he is losing money with his online sites, Murdoch says no but they aren't making millions. No surprises here, Murdoch's main concern isn't his journalists' hard work getting ripped off, its about the amount of money going in his wallet. Then he goes on to defend Fox news saying they are the only "fair and balanced" news. It's quite interesting to here how he describes Fox new programs, such as Glen Beck's, to an Australian audience. It's an interesting video, even if it just shows how out of touch Murdoch is with modern media and its audience.

Independence, satire and press freedom

Australian media commentator and comedian Julian Morrow delivers a speech on independent media, censorship and media ownership at the annual Andrew Olle lecture. Andrew Olle was a respected Australian journalist.

e-Palestine

Time has an interesting article on the "e-Palestine" movement that started after the second intifada erupted, in 2000. Instead of using violence, an increasing number of Palestinians are using online activism.

Saif Abukeshek who is from the West Bank city of Nablus but now lives in Madrid says, "It's a way to achieve effective non-violent resistance."Abukeshek helps run Pal-youth.org, an online internet portal connecting Palestinians around the world. He says that their reduced mobility, along with growing internet access, has seen a serge of young Palestinians joining online communities, a movement that sociologists are calling "e-Palestine."Starting out mainly as a way for youths to socialize, young Palestinians are now using chats to discuss the news and politics with one another. To read the article click here.

Google Dashboard, friend or foe?

After Google announcing Dashboard, a new program that allows you to manage all your information associated with Google, Andrew Heining of The Christian Science Monitor asks, is having all your personal data accessible in one place a good thing?

While Heining points out that the most basic concern is how easy Dashboard makes it for someone to get find all your private information in one place, his biggest fear is Google having, and accessing, all of our information. Heining writes,

"Another unintended feature of Google Dashboard? Its ability to freak us out. Yes, the concerns have been there from the beginning: ‘Give Google access to every email I send?’ ‘Tell Google where I am?’ ‘Let Google record and transcribe my phone conversations?’ But now, with Dashboard aggregating all of the aspects of our lives that we’ve signed away to Google, it’s hard to just shrug off those concerns as “privacy wonk stuff.”"

To read the rest of the article click here

Ariana Huffington

Lets just bypass how late she was. I thought Arianna Huffington was such an inspiring person. Given how hard hitting her columns are, I was surprised by how sweet she came across. To be honest I was expecting Huffington to be very matter of fact, but it seemed like she was generally pleased to be here and answer our questions. For me, coming from Australia means I don't always have the opportunity of meet such influential people, so it was an amazing experience. The intimate setting and being able to ask her questions one on one was a fantastic opportunity.

So all the praise aside, lets discuss some of the things she spoke about. With so much criticism from traditional media outlets, I really appreciated Huffington's optimism for newspapers. Rather than saying they are doomed, Huffington stressed that journalism will only become stronger with new and old media coming together, sharing their best qualities. While online offers amazing opportunities for multimedia, reach and audience participation, traditional media can offer experience with investigative reporting and other news values.

I really agree with Huffington's answer to the question about whether balance is important. She said not all stories are balanced, and giving equal space to two unequal sides actually skews facts and mislead the audience. I do believe in objectivity in hard news, and I stress the difference between it and balance, I see objectivity as trying to keep your opinion out, but I thought her point that "facts are sacred" was spot on for opinion pieces.

I also thought it was great how Huffington talked about how young journalists are succeeding because of their skills online. It is extremely daunting knowing I will be entering the work force in a few months, so it's nice to know that I still have things to offer when competing with experienced journalists.

But most of all, just hearing and seeing Huffington's passion was of most value. And I'll end on a quote from her, "failure is not the opposite to success. It's the stepping stone to success" - a line I think young journalists should remind themselves of.

It’s 2012 and news is no longer free

Simon Dumenco predicts the future in the article “Life After the Pay Wall: Ignorance Ain't Bliss After All” for the Advertising Age.

It’s 2012 and news is no longer free. Michael Wolff, founder of the news-aggregation site Newser, is in prison, the first high-profile casualty of the 2011 anti-aggregation law. To avoid punishment the Huffington Post has turned into an Arianna Huffington fan-fiction site – and has better traffic than ever. It’s an era where news is luxury, where a yearly subscription to the New York Times cost $7,000. Mobsters are now trafficking pay-wall passwords because it’s more lucrative than counterfeit handbags. All paid-news consumers have to agree to a "Premium Content Code of Honor" that prohibits them from sharing news with non-subscribers. And shock horror, Fox News is now The Glenn Beck Channel.