Rupert Murdoch and a gaggle of editors/columnists/commentatorsminions have been sounding off about the evils of Google as a news aggregator. News Limited is a “content creator”, it’s asserted, and news aggregation is something akin to theft.
A few years ago, the News publicity machine was trumpeting that Murdoch “gets” the internet. Perhaps he’s feeling a bit disillusioned after buying Myspace just at the point when its eventual eclipse by other social networking sites could have been predicted.
Murdoch also claims that Google News undermines “brand loyalty”. That’s to make the false assumption that newspapers enjoy all that much of it these days. Gone are the days when bourgeois values dictated that an upstanding bowler-hatted citizen bought the “right” newspaper. Affinity with a news brand is a bit of a reach for newspapers targeting a mass market – it’s possible when you’re talking about niche or hyperlocal publications, but unlikely to have much salience with, say, the Courier-Mail.
Similarly, it’s not that Google has an evil plan to accustom readers to sourcing news from a variety of originating publications. Google is just replicating emergent consumption habits, which of course is why it’s been so successful.
If “newsrooms” heed Murdoch’s “call to arms” (and some no doubt will because, well, he owns them) and return to a pay for view model they’ll be cutting their own throats. Murdoch may thunder that it’s wrong for folks to think information should be free (without perhaps noticing the irony of the clash with his oft-stated ideology). But this is to ignore the fact that newspapers – for a century or more – have traditionally been cheap. If fewer and fewer customers are prepared to spend a buck fifty on a dead tree copy of The Australian, how many would pay to read its content online? The idea of a Kindle like newspaper reader is also a dead end. Failed experiments in delivering replications of print papers online go back to the 1980s – before the web was conceived. A fundamental shift – or rather a series of fundamental shifts – have occurred over the past few decades, and Murdoch risks driving his news business to an early grave.
There are also some fallacies around the idea of “content creation” in this context. Another irony is that increasing amounts of “industrial journalism” production are being outsourced to worse and worse paid freelancers by companies such as News, not to mention what were once core functions such as sub-editing. If Murdoch’s concern really lay with content creators, he wouldn’t be acting in this fashion. His real concern, of course, is with the ownership of and economic returns to content. But that’s another horse who bolted long ago.
Related to this trope of ownership and control is the dissing of blogs and other independent online media for “recycling” journalistic content. I think that’s a very inaccurate description of what blogs do, but let’s leave that aside. What it does point to is the hollowness of the notion that newspapers are “the heart of the nation” – or the centre of a vibrant public sphere. It amounts to an attempted prohibition on the discussion of news and the production of public opinion, except by those within the corporation’s walls (and walled off domains).
So those who are trying to protect the salaried model of journalism, and those who think this model protects the public interest, might pause and consider whether this sort of approach is really the way to go – even if a supposedly successful and brilliant mogul suggests it is. If Murdoch’s proved anything with this spray, it’s that he gets neither the internet nor, arguably, the media business.
Of course the irony is that (in most cases) papers don’t “create” the content anyway. All they do is report on what happened – often pretty loosely.
And that is why I won’t buy a newspaper any more. If I do I get a single point of view about a limited number of stories.
Online, especially with Google news, I can compare stories on the same topic and drill down for more information if I want.
THAT is what I want when I am interested in a news story and dead tree papers, obviously, can’t do it.
Having been misquoted, taken out of context and generally burned in news stories more times than I can remember, my trust in a single source of information was destroyed long ago.
“Creating” content. BAHAHAH!
My first ever university job was research assistant work assessing the differenece betwen press releases and newspaper articles. The cut to the quick of the findings: there wasnt any.
Then on top of that you have the syndicated news reports from elsewhere.
The you have “News” and Fairfax reusing their own content in different sites.
It all adds up to a fairly limited “intellectual property” argument.
What annoys Rupert isn’t that Google is stealing content but that they are doing exactly what he is doing, selling eyeballs to advertisers, eyeballs that are attracted to one spot by some sort of content. Rupert attracts them with news and op eds; Google attracts them by aggregating links to news. But there’s only so much money being paid for eyeballs and Google is getting enough of it to – I am sure – tick off the Rupert’s of the world.
Stealing content? If not that, the pattern of the rug in Sergei’s office.
Google News is my main source of news direct from the newspapers, and mightily useful for keeping up with books via the Guardian/SMH/Oz/Times/NY Times etc. Though sometimes I wonder, given some of the stories and journalists eg Bolt that are headlined if there isn’t an underlying right wing bias.
I pretty much agree with what you have to say in this post Mark about Rupert and his silliness. So, I wonder why it leaves me feeling irritated? I think it’s the language that’s being used – the figure of the bowler hatted bourgeois who, god forbid, has brand loyalty to a newspaper and even worse purchases the ‘dead tree version’. How boringly 20th century of them.
Except, I still buy the Age most mornings, as well as read blogs. I can wlak and chew gum. At $1.50 the Age is at a price point makes it easy to purchase and then disposable. I don’t have to hang on every word, just read what I find relevant. I like stsrting my day with a coffee at a cafe and a paper, gossiping ot acquaintances. It’s something that blogs can’t replicate at this stage. I maybe a dwindling minority, but I still exist.
My point is that so often these sorts of conversation tend to to turn into newspapers vs blogs, which as you know is a fruitless way to talk. So, I wonder why you use language in this post which reproduces that binary?
Creating content indeed. I believe Fairfax papers have on occasions resorted to posting articles direct from American news services without changing measurements but simply putting a note at the bottom indicating that we should convert between imperial and metric ourselves. Also worth noting, the Age having an article online recently that was lifted from a wires service. Yet it was based on some original reporting in the Age, so on a Fairfax website there was the phrase, in the middle of an article, “Fairfax publications today reported that” (or words to that effect.)
Speaking of new media/the internet, i am watching the NBA on channel ten’s digital sports channel and the ‘sideline’ commentator has a laptop open to tell us about what pro sportsmen are twittering and specifically how Shaq was trying to find another player on twitter and guess what, that player twittered Shaq back. OMG! I’m so glad i can hear about what’s going on on the internet by watching TV.
*I can wlak and chew gum*
Unfortunately, I can’t spell.
awwwwwww Fine,
I was going to ask you to explain to us all how to wlak. It sounds good. Maybe “The Age online” will have a breathless feature next month?
Wlak – The New Blcak ! ??
Fair point, Fine. The evil of the binary is that it’s so hard to avoid being co-opted by its terms when you’re writing about an argument from one side of it.
FWIW, I buy the print Fin Review every day, and like to read a paper over coffee or lunch!
As if Murdoch doesn’t recycle his material. One of the reasons I stopped buying the Oz was all the second -hand and -rate articles from the Weekly Standard. Chest thumping articles about the war on terror, the iniquities of the Arab world, and how the West should stand together. All that’s missing is Tim Brooke-Taylor and his gramophone.
If Murdoch wants to create customer loyalty, he needs to improve the content of his publications – poorly paid journos who only have time to rip off press releases won’t do anything for his bottom line.
Differences between Murdoch and Fairfax media are becoming harder to find these days.The hint of right wing bias noted of Google News is perhaps reflecting what is present in most of the media here.The ABC is no exception even though we are constantly pounded with its alleged “left-wing” bias. Shout loud enough and avoid scrutiny of what you push in your own media seems to have won the day.
p.s. to Ambigulous@8 – You don’t generally nitpick, why start now.
Slightly OT but does anybody else get annoyed by the twangy US reports that seem to be the finish-up story for ABC news programs of late?
media tracker, I think ambi was just teasing me. It’s ok.
If Mr Murdoch is so outraged at the thieving of his content, it would be nice if he were to be quite as zealous as to the quality of that content. This also applies to the Fairfax papers which may lack the evident bias, but also lack much in the way of good journalism.
Murdoch though also exposes something else missing in his business plans – a firm grasp of the realities of the new technologies of knowledge. Smart folk are making tight little sites for download & display on gadgets such as Iphones, Blackberries and the like. Say for example n.abc.net.au. Clever old Aunty. Tried loading The Australian’s website on your blackberry? Oh it wont work. Silly Rupert. You’re also missing the potential strength of aggregation. If your material is well-written enough, and generated quickly enough, it will attract new readers to your brand. Arhh but that might involve hiring & supporting real inhouse journalists. Poor Rupert. What is a poor bear to do?
Murdoch does get it.
Newspapers have three sources of revenue: cover price, advertising and classifieds.
Circulation and subscription are being crunched by free online editions and Google News.
Advertising is being crunched by the GFC and the massive explosion in online inventory.
Classifieds are being crunched by online classifieds sites and the GFC.
Essentially he can see the writing on the wall. It says “You’re fucked” in bright red ink.
I just want to sound a tiny note of dissension here –
If Murdoch doesn’t get it, then why is he the multi-billionaire living on Manhattan with a wife a few decades his junior, while we eke out a living between precarious contracts, all the while loudly declaring how clever we all are?
Sorry to be a buzz-kill, but for a guy who doesn’t “get it”, Rupert Murdoch seems much more secure than do any of us smart people…
(For some reason, I suddenly feel like the kid in the back row of the class making farting noises in my armpit.)
An alternate way of putting it might be:
(a) Why did News Ltd almost go bust during the last recession?
(b) Are they living on the accumulated riches of a business model which has now well passed its zenith?
As to casualisation and contracts, as I said, that’s the present for an increasing number of “content creators” for News – and the future for a lot more, I dare say.
Mark@18: Yaaas. Well. I took an extra dose of cynical pills this morning, hence the question.
I remain astonished every time I visit The Australian’s website and see that banner-ad which proudly proclaims “News Ltd. will be carbon-neutral by 2010″. I presume this is because the last real journalist to leave will switch out the lights as they go?
I reckon Murdoch does get it. But what’s a media mogul to do? It’s been a long time since The Australian paid its way. Yeah, it’s getting worse. They sacked poor old D.D. McNicoll last week and frogmarched him from the building without him being able to say his goodbyes to confreres after 35 years faithful service. How bad is that? Still the Australian political landscape is hard to imagine without the Oz, isn’t it. And don’t they know it.
‘a pay for view model they’ll be cutting their own throats.’
Leaving people with possibly a more raw form of the news and, a real boon for ABC on-line and blogger sites. It would be the end of whatever political influence his news papers have.
Sorry Rupe, the only way out is to become Google.
Oh thank God. I thought you were serious. After Feb’s announcement of a quarterly loss and a $8.4 billion (US) writedown, with a predicted 30% drop in earnings, well… all that leverage must be a worry. And by the way, does anyone know News Limited current debt to earning ratio? I can’t seem to find it anywhere – funny – given that Uncle Rupert now also owns the Dow.
66.38%. As per the News Corporation website. A very good place to start…
Sorry Fine, I WAS just teasing. Being very, very silly. Sorry media tracker.
With apologies to PM Rudd and SuperBoy Wayne Carey: “IF I have offended anyone, I will now display 0.5 seconds of remorse.”
It’s cool, ambi. I wasn’t offended.
Why read the Australian when you can watch O’Reilly and Glen Beck?
“Similarly, it’s not that Google has an evil plan to accustom readers to sourcing news from a variety of originating publications.”
While I agree it’s hardly evil, Google’s own admission about their plans to manipulate results based on advertising levels diminishes any claim they have, or that can be made on their behalf, about them being simply an aggregator.
There’s plenty of other ways to get good news than just Google. Other aggregators like Digg and Stumble – even Twitter. Google looks like it’s starting to follow those “voting” models with their search terms.
A good take at the BBC – excerpt:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7985524.stm
In other news, the Dewey Decimal system and MARC were denounced as scum-sucking traitors to knowledge workers everywhere. Footage at 11.
Why watch O’Reilly and Glenn Beck when you can watch Mr Colbert.
Politcal analysis as soap opera — it could only happen on Fox.
See Beck skewered on Colbert at http://www.digg.com/d1ngIx
News’ hypocrisy is rich indeed. Excluding Google is a trivial technical exercise. It’s a one line change. That would of course exclude their stories from being spidered and lose them page rank. They’re doomed!
I started responding to this but realised I had too much to say for a comment post.
My thoughts posted to my blog here: http://importanceofideas.com/2009/04/07/google-should-search-for-solution-too/
Mark @ 9: The evil of the binary is that it’s so hard to avoid being co-opted by its terms when you’re writing about an argument from one side of it.
Actually there’s no such binary at all. I don’t know what Uncle Rupert’s been putting in his bromides nor Dirk Smillie, for that matter, who wrote the Forbes piece. Google News is a news portal or news retrieval service. It’s more an index and what’s more one that you can personalise as I’ve done. My Google news page provides for stories on a range of topics I’ve selected: Australian, International, Middle East, Gay/Lesbian, Religion, Science, South Asia etc. There’s no advertising on my news page either. Plus I supplement Google News with a number of online newspapers and blogs. none of them in Rupert’s stable, as far as I know anyway. They’re mostly all from overseas.
As for Google Books, as an academic author I love it. I’m never going to retire on my royalties. My goal is actually to get my ideas to a broad public so there would never be enough copies of my book printed to do that. Google books makes it more widely accessible.
No doubt Rupert is feeling the winds of change but it’s more likely to be due to his dumbing down of his own product and treating his audiences like mugs. I barely bother to read the Australian online let alone waste money buying the rag.
Murdoch also claims that Google News undermines “brand loyalty”.
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Aawwwww diddums!
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It’s called competition Rupert. Get over it mate.
Well, if Murdoch bans his papers from Google News, unless they’re linked on LP, I guess I’ll never read them, will I?
Fairfax doesn’t get a whole lot either. In today’s dead tree edition the op-ed page is inhabited solely by middle aged men staring back at me. In the case of Gerard that is an exceedingly generous description.
Now, I have nothing against middle age men, being close to one myself, but FFS a bit of variety wouldn’t go astray, not to mention fresh viewpoints and excellent writing. Too much to ask!
The mainstream media is dead. It just doesn’t know it yet. Stuff like this is the future. And that’s one thing about the future that looks good.
Nearly all the content News Ltd ‘creates’ is either prejudice and propaganda masquerading as expert commentary, mindless ‘he said/she said’ items, or creative fiction (remember the damning evidence that Mahomed Haneef’s computer disclosed a plot to fly a plane into a Gold Coast building?). Most of the supposed factual reporting is nothing more than reworked news releases and pieces from the wire services, which we can get on a reader without having to wait for some junior journalist to edit them.
Murdoch is like the lumbering old music multinationals desperately trying to find ways to force us all to keep buying CDs.
BTW I would dearly love to see the News Ltd stable of pundits disappear behind a pay-only firewall. Then bloggers might stop linking to them and they would quickly decline into utter irrelevance.
There’s a story (myth???) that in the late 1800s, artist Frederic Remington informed Hearst that “there will be no war” in Cuba. Hearst replied “please remain. You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”
Thank goodness that today we are much more discerning consumers of corporate meeja.
No… wait… um….
Imagine not being able to freely access all those Murdoch media stories that help con the world into more wars? What a tragedy.
I know of a few Australian war veterans who were smeared by Murdoch’s media as supporters of Saddam Hussein because they opposed the War On Iraq, and they laugh long and loud every time the financial news shows announce another few billion dollars has been carved away from the Murdoch empire.
Interesting, calamity-filled times indeed for the corporate media, and boom time for independents.
And the question for those who think the industrial model is dead and buried is: what is going to replace it – if anything?