"New York Times" weighs in again on Murdoch

"For Murdoch, It’s Try, Try Again"

by

David Carr

August 10th, 2009

New York Times

Does Rupert Murdoch have one more revolution in him?

The man who took over newspapering in Australia and Britain, and upended the cable news business here, planted a new flag last week, pronouncing that, contrary to popular reports, information does not want to be free; it actually wants to be paid for.

Given the amount of skin he has in that particular game, Mr. Murdoch made quite a splash last Wednesday during an earnings call for the News Corporation.

“Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting,” he said. “The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news Web sites.”

With characteristic confidence, he added that “I believe that if we are successful, we will be followed by other media.” Yes, perhaps when the change takes place over the coming fiscal year, he will be greeted by the sound of hearty applause from his fellow media companies.

Or he may just hear crickets chirping.

Certainly he is not alone. Many news organizations are wondering how to delicately perform some kind of cashectomy on digital consumers. The pay wall idea is neither new nor untried. Just last Monday, The Daily Gazette in Schenectady, N.Y., moved behind a wall.

The New York Times seems to be having a bit of a change of heart as well. After dumping TimesSelect two years ago, the newspaper is exploring various models on the Web, although nothing as firm or far reaching has been announced, and a spokesman for The Boston Globe told The Associated Press on Friday that the newspaper was “heading toward some sort of consumer pay model.” But there was something vaguely oracular and final about his statement, as if saying it might make it so.

Setting aside the execution risk of such a plan, it’s difficult to tell how serious Mr. Murdoch is, given his history of grand statements that were only that. Perhaps he was making an unsubtle effort to change the subject during a bleak earnings call for News Corporation: fourth-quarter operating income, adjusted for certain items, dropped more than 30 percent and after taking $680 million in charges, mainly from the unit that houses MySpace, the company reported a net loss of $203 million.

In the fourth quarter, the company’s newspaper division reported that operating income decreased $167 million from the same period last year. Hence the pivot toward consumers: “We’re hopeful we can build significant revenues from the sale of the digital delivery of newspapers’ news content,” he said.

Finding Mr. Murdoch shouting from the top of a pay wall is a bit of a head scratcher, given that after he bought The Wall Street Journal less than two years ago, his first order of business seemed to be changing that newspaper’s paid Web model to free.

“We are studying it and we expect to make that free, and instead of having one million, having at least 10 million to 15 million in every corner of the earth,” Mr. Murdoch said to shareholders in November of 2007. Executives at the property he bought convinced him that it would be a bad move, and so The Journal’s paid model is now held out as a way forward for much of the industry.

Digital media have not generally been a sweet spot for News Corporation. Sure, WSJ.com and The Times of London and The Sunday Times (in London) have good Web interfaces, but the digital version of The New York Post is frustrating enough to seem as if it were designed to push the consumer back toward print. And given its clear lead on television as a franchise, Fox News’s clunky and uninspired Web site compares very unfavorably to its cable brethren.

Mr. Murdoch may lack a consumer’s perspective on the digital matters. Michael Wolff, the owner of Newser.com and the author of “The Man Who Owns the News,” a biography of Mr. Murdoch, maintained in a blog post last week that Mr. Murdoch had, as of a year ago, never browsed the Web by himself. And while you don’t have to possess a knack for brain surgery to run a hospital, the organic activity of surfing offers this object lesson: when you bump into a wall, you tend to go elsewhere.

But it may depend on the wall. The Financial Times has had some success with a metered approach and may add in an iTunes-like menu for buying individual pieces. And The Wall Street Journal uses a leaky wall that allows sampling, but extracts a convenience charge for those who want easy access to the entire package. Both models have the virtue of continued visibility on search engines while potentially converting those who stop by.

No one expects Mr. Murdoch to erect a barrier around his entire enterprise. News Corporation has the kind of scale and robust media brands that will allow the company to experiment with bundling various kinds of content along topical or geographical lines to see what will click. (The Guardian newspaper of London has reported that News Corporation will use The Sunday Times, a high-quality bit of newspapering, as a beta test, creating a stand-alone site that will have some sort of pay model.)

The problem, both for Mr. Murdoch and the industry at large, is that it’s dangerous to generalize the success of The Wall Street Journal or The Financial Times with paid subscriptions on the Web to other media properties. Those newspapers contain useful data, with a network of alerts and specialized features that make them extremely valuable to people who need up-to-the-minute information to do business.

While I am a sucker for a Page Six item revealing that Paris Hilton has achieved détente with a former frenemy, I’m not about to pay for that information. Much of the news that News Corporation produces is already a commodity by the time it hits the Web.

The deeper problem for Mr. Murdoch and every other newspaper owner is that although the revenue picture for newspapers has changed considerably in the last two years, the consumer is still stuck on zero when it comes to what he or she will pay for the vast majority of content.

“Nothing has changed in terms of the consumer expectation,” said Richard Greenfield, a media analyst at Pali Research. “What has disappeared is the belief that you could have a news business that is sustainable as an advertising-only proposition.”

Regardless of what others do, Mr. Murdoch has some work to do with consumers. When word came down in Australia that Mr. Murdoch would be expecting fees from readers of news.com.au in the coming year, readers rained invective and ridicule on the idea, including a commenter identifying himself as Alan Gilbey:

“Now let’s see. Delete bookmark. Navigate to different news site. Create new bookmark. Rupert who??”


Rupert Murdoch's plan--wrong!

Rupert Murdoch's plan--wrong!

Rupert Murdoch has stuck his foot in his mouth by wishing to charge for online journalism. Murdoch is a communication mogul in print media [New York Post, San Antonio Express-News, Star, The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd., The Sun, The Times], television venues [Fox News Channel and Star TV] and other media sources. Print media revenue is down and newspapers are folding. More people gather their information from the Internet and Murdoch wants to start charging for access. He wishes to follow suit as many of those online journals and article repositories that charge a high-priced subscription or per article fee. Good luck Mr. Murdoch.

"Murdoch Mans Up"

by

Eric Etheridge

August 6th, 2009

The New York Times

Sure, everyone talks about charging for their online content. But does anybody ever do anything about it?

Rupert Murdoch, stand and deliver.

"We intend to charge for all our news Web sites," Murdoch announced yesterday.

"Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good reporting," Mr Murdoch said.

"The increase we have seen in our Wall Street Journal subscription proves to me that the market is willing to pay for that quality."

About time, says Fred Wilson at his blog, A VC:

We can talk until we are blue in the face about whether people will pay for news or not. Talk is cheap. Actions are not. So I'm eager to see the experiments begin.

Wilson's not being sarcastic. He's more optimistic than most future positives about content sites finding a way to charge their readers, and even has his own vision a "freemium model" he thinks might work ("I like the model where the more frequent a visitor is, the more is required of them"). Still, he wonders if there are models that will work for every online node of Murdochworld.

It's not clear to me that newspapers like The Sun, The Times, and The Post will be able to make the WSJ's model work. And that's what interests me. What will News Corp do for those properties? And will it work?

Most others are straight-up dubious, though many hedge their skepticism by invoking Murdoch's mad skills, which are apparently best described as "savvy": "Don't ever count Rupe's media savvy out," says one. "It's never wise to challenge Rupert Murdoch's media savvy," says another.

Others are not so careful. At the Guardian, Jeff Jarvis says, not for the first time:

Newspapers have had 15 years since the launch of the internet browser to reimagine and rebuild themselves for the reality of the post-Gutenberg age. But they didn't. Now they are trying to reclaim old business models for a new media economy — a link economy, I call it, in which links give content value. Cut yourself off from links, behind pay walls, and you cut yourself off from the internet and its real value.

Also at the Guardan, Matt Wells, says the Murdoch's announcement is "a sign that the news industry is running out of options."

The old business model – cover price plus ad revenue – is bust: blown apart by the loss of classified to online networks and collapse of cover-price revenue due to falling sales. The hoped-for cash from online advertising has not materialised, at least not on the scale that would support the kind of journalism practised by the likes of Murdoch's papers, or for that matter the Guardian.

At Techdirt, Mike Masnick offers three reasons why he thinks Murdoch will fail.

1. [The] other sites [in Murdoch's network] don't have the qualities that make some people willing to pay for the WSJ. The quality isn't as good and the direct monetary benefit is not nearly as clear.

2. Most of those other sites have much clearer (free) competition.

3. Nowhere at all does Murdoch talk about actually giving people a reason to buy. All he's saying is that if they put up a paywall, people will pay. Sure, a few might, but it’s a small number, and doing so will stagnate any sort of growth, piss off advertisers, and allow competitors to take a giant leap forward — all in one shot.

Professional Murdoch chronicler Michael Wolff says the publisher's paywall plan will be an "uphill fight," and "probably even greater than it might appear" because both Murdoch and his company are so techno-backward.

Not only is he, among all media executives, the most technically disinclined (actually, totally illiterate), but his company, of all the big media enterprise, is the most technically backward and maladroit. He may now employ more reporters than anyone else in the world, but they use the oldest computers. He may have some of the world’s most trafficked news sites, but they are also the slowest and most inept. Technology, at News Corp., has always been regarded as one of those things, like fancy hotels, or long-form writing, that are not part of the company culture.

Murdoch's pronouncement is but one of several big-foot moves of late as the major media players choose sides in the great pay-versus-free grudge match. Late last month the Associated Press, a key member of the Pay Up! team, introduced a much-criticized and somewhat confusing (or deliberately misunderstood, depending on whom you read) scheme to "detect unlicensed use of its content." Murdoch hit the same note yesterday: "We will be asserting our copyright at every point."

On Tuesday, Chris Ahearn, president of Reuters Media, fired back at the A.P. and came out as a proud member of the Link Lovers: "I believe in the link economy."

The Internet isn't killing the news business any more than TV killed radio or radio killed the newspaper. Incumbent business leaders in news haven't been keeping up. . . .

Blaming the new leaders or aggregators for disrupting the business of the old leaders, or saber-rattling and threatening to sue are not business strategies — they are personal therapy sessions. Go ask a music executive how well it works.

A better approach is to have a general agreement among community members to treat others' content, business and ideas with the same respect you would want them to treat yours.

If you are doing something that you would object to if others did it to you — stop. If you don't want search engines linking to you, insert code to ban them.

I believe in the link economy. Please feel free to link to our stories — it adds value to all producers of content. I believe you should play fair and encourage your readers to read-around to what others are producing if you use it and find it interesting.

The Link Lovers made another key acquisition last week, when NPR introduced its revamped site, with a stated goal of emphasizing "written reporting over audio reports" — as in free written reporting.

"I am a staunch believer that people will not in large numbers pay for news content online," says NPR chief executive Vivian Schiller.

It's almost like there's mass delusion going on in the industry — They're saying we really really need it, that we didn't put up a pay wall 15 years ago, so let’s do it now. In other words, they think that wanting it so badly will automatically actually change the behavior of the audience. The world doesn't work that way. Frankly, if all the news organizations locked pinkies, and said we're all going to put up a big fat pay wall, you know what, more traffic for us. News is a commodity; I'm sorry to say.

If all the current and future members of team Pay Up! had a choice about who should be the head pinky-locker, it would probably be Murdoch, a man of maximalist ambition and success.

As Michael Wolff observes, "Owning the world's biggest news business is exactly what he set out to do, and … that is pretty much what he achieved."

There is, simply, no one who produces more news than Rupert. Quantity is what he does. On this basis and with this approach, he is now losing his shirt. But he cannot conceive of the world in any other sense than one in which his news outlets are not the most emphatic and powerful and lucrative.

Who else but Murdoch should lead the Pay Ups! in the great and glorious final battle against the Linkers? Charge!

Journalism errors do occur Mr. Murdoch as pointed out by the Los Angeles Times regarding the passing of Walter Cronkite. If one had to pay for that obituary would not they have been cheated?

Murdoch said "Quality journalism is not cheap...." Consider the following for the communication media does and will make errors.

"Cronkite blunder a revealing look inside New York Times"

Alessandra Stanley's many mistakes point to a double standard when it comes to high-profile writers. More of the Times' high level of self scrutiny is a step in the right direction.

by

James Rainey

August 5th, 2009

Los Angeles Times

I have to admit it would be fun to join the rollicking beat-down of the New York Times and Alessandra Stanley that has followed the chief television critic's egregiously error-ridden tribute to Walter Cronkite.

Wasn't the public fascinated, after all, to learn that Stanley and the nation's Paper of Record managed eight mistakes in an almost 1,200-word tribute to Uncle Walter? Didn't many in the news game enjoy a moment of schadenfreude, seeing such a tart critic of shoddy TV journalism with her own flank exposed?

But sweet payback has more to do with emotion than reason.

In fact, the botched Cronkite appreciation and the brutally frank corrective actions (including last Sunday's scathing deconstruction by the paper's public editor) expose both a chronic weakness and a persistent strength inside the New York Times, America's most important journalistic institution.

The Times has a bad habit, revealed by the Stanley critique and in recent years by the Jayson Blair and Judith Miller incidents, of letting a few well-connected journalists run amok. At the same time, the Times has shown the strength to subject itself to a level of self scrutiny that some (in a Web Age when corrections of grievous errors come labeled as "updates") would not even pretend.

The New York Times, in short, needs to enforce its high standards more uniformly, regardless of whose byline appears at the top of the story. But its TV critic's latest stumble down Error Alley is hardly evidence, as some would like to suggest, that journalism's top brand has been hopelessly compromised.

I come to this mixed verdict, in part, after a conversation with the newspaper's former public editor, Byron Calame, who told me that "a lot of New York Times editors don't feel, in their gut, they have the right to challenge veteran and star reporters and columnists the way they need to."

But Calame, now retired after a couple of years as the Times' internal watchdog, added: "I still think it's an amazing newspaper. They do a lot of things right. So I don't think this is some sort of huge hole they can't pull out of."

The Cronkite appraisal felt like "a disaster, the equivalent of a car crash," as one editor put it, because of the prominence of the subject and because the newspaper had plenty of time to prepare for the ailing newsman's death.

Yet in her piece, Stanley, who previously worked as a foreign correspondent and covered the White House, misstated the dates of the first moon landing and the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. She had Cronkite covering D-day from the beaches of Normandy, instead of high overhead in a B-17.

Calame's successor and the paper's current public editor, Clark Hoyt, attributed the mistake-filled Cronkite appraisal to "a television critic with a history of errors [who] wrote hastily and failed to double-check her work, and editors who should have been vigilant [but] were not."

He suggested that tougher scrutiny by editors and better communication could have prevented the errors. No doubt.

But I think Hoyt paid too little attention to Stanley's special standing at the paper.

In fact, several people who work at the Times told me they are troubled that Stanley is a star whose continued accuracy problems seem to provoke no apparent discipline.

Her failings became serious enough a few years ago that the paper assigned the TV critic her own personal copy editor -- a fact noted in Hoyt's assessment.

Calame wrote in 2005 about what he said was a cut-and-dried inaccuracy, in which Stanley accused Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera of grandstanding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The TV critic wrote that Rivera "nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the way," so he could help an older woman into a wheelchair. But Calame reviewed the video and saw no nudging.

Rather than agree to a correction, however, Times Editor Bill Keller defended Stanley for "writing as a critic, with the license that title brings." In other words, Rivera was showboating, so he had nudged his way into the story figuratively, if not literally.

Both of the Times' former public editors -- Daniel Okrent and Calame -- told me their critiques produced sharp rebukes from Stanley.

Okrent -- who once criticized the critic for tone, not accuracy -- remembers her as "extremely defensive and hostile," while Calame said she attacked him as a nitpicker.

Those reactions and Keller's somewhat tortured defense of his TV critic tell me that Stanley was one of the entitled ones. The Times is the Times in part because writers such as Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman -- and to some extent others like Stanley -- think big and write with brio.

They enhance their names, and the paper's, by staking out novel ground.

But ultimately, the Times remains the nation's premier news outlet because it has a high regard for facts. That is why even the paper's harshest critics -- in their blog postings and cable TV reports -- spin off facts they first learned in the Times.

"One thing that sets a serious newspaper apart from most other institutions in our society is that we own up to our mistakes with corrections, editor's notes and other accountability devices, including the public editor's column," Keller said to me in an e-mail Tuesday.

Hoyt's column suggests that the Cronkite errors will lead to Stanley again getting "special editing attention." But as Times-watcher Craig Silverman wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review, it would serve the critic and the paper better to correct the problem closer to its root by getting Stanley in "a training program that helps her stop making simple factual errors at such an alarming rate."

Stanley acknowledged the mistakes in the Cronkite piece as "my fault," also telling Hoyt: "There are no excuses." She did not respond to an e-mail requesting further comment.

Keller declined to say whether his lead TV critic might face corrective measures. He rejected the notion that the Times' big names get to play by different standards.

"Stars or purported stars are obliged to get their facts right," the Times editor said. "Editors are obliged to edit everyone without fear or favor. Period."

Since it's not so clear that lesson has become ingrained deeply enough with everyone in the organization, it makes sense that the paper keeps an independent public editor on the payroll.

I hope the Times decides to keep the position when it comes up for review next year.

The dirty laundry hanging out the window this time was particularly unsightly. But it also suggests the owners have some determination to keep the house clean.

Here is the New York Times obituary...

Here is the New York Times obituary...

Deceased--Walter Cronkite