Ausspiracy

Yesterday I read a bunch of letters sent to The Guardian regarding Rupert Murdoch, when I came across this peculiar word. It seems that everybody loves to hate Julian Assange and Rupert Murdoch!

There have been so many talks about Wikileaks, that I consider the topic quite exhausted or at least a bit trite by now. My interest is drawn by the Australian media mogul, who just recently celebrated his 80^th birthday.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Murdoch!

Better than ever, that’s how I would describe Murdoch’s current situation in the communication business world. He is close to score the most expensive deal in his career, buying BSkyB network, now officially having the support of Culture Secretary in Britain, Jeremy Hunt. That way not only the presence of News Corp in the British media market will be definitive, but also his political influence in the UK is considered to be alarming. (The Guardian)

Rupert Murdoch knows a lot about newspapers, but he is totally at odds with digital devices. Well known for not using a computer. Nevertheless, he doesn’t want to give up the traditional idea for journalism and applies a new subscription model to his corporation’s online editions of newspapers, in other words – makes people pay for online content. Are we ready for that?

In my opinion, we have to realize something and this is Internet has never been free. That’s to begin with. Despite of the broadband, despite of the growing efforts of numerous people, we still have to pay for Internet access. And if everything is getting digital, well, soon we won’t need to go to the kiosk and buy the news on paper; we are all going to have it on our iPads.

No place for doubts, I totally support the subscription system. In fact, I admire Rupert Murdoch’s efforts. He fights for journalism, he fights for principles and he actually does something about it. Many people say that his only goal is making money and, certainly, he has a pretty big revenue from his television network broadcasting. I don't see anything bad in that. How about the newspapers?

The Wall Street Journal has started their tablet edition subscription in 2009, initially for users of kindles and claimed people actually are interested to pay for content. For the last year, however, their number has increased rapidly to reach 200 000 subscribers, sais publisher Les Hinton. The subscribers pay a $3,99 per week in order to have Journal's iPad app. So yes, it works.

An amusing thing about Australians seems to be they are not very well received whenever around the world they go, but they seem to feel perfectly happy outside their own country. Assange still seeks refuge; Murdoch, after trying to remain in Britain, finds his paradise in the US, where Fox is brought into the world and now conquers it. Another figure that I find really inspiring is the Editor-in-Chief of Dow Jones, Robert J. Thomson, Australian. He revolutionized the online edition of the British Times and also worked in the American Financial Times. Doing a homework, I recently watched a conference he talked on and saying that I was impressed will not be enough. Honestly, he may be working for News Corp, but I doubt that his words are of a man that blindly praises his boss. I leave a couple of videos for you to see.

P.S. While writing this post I wanted to get some more information on Politics on the Internet.

The economist’s article that would have been a great source of analysis is only available for subscribers. Funny, isn’t it?