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There's no denying that Rupert Murdoch built up quite a media empire over the decades -- but that was almost all entirely focused on newspaper and pay TV. While he's spent the past few decades trying to do stuff on the internet, he has an impressively long list of failures over the years. There are many stories of him buying internet properties (Delphi, MySpace, Photobucket) or starting them himself (iGuide, Fox Interactive, The Daily) and driving them into the ground (or just flopping right out of the gate). While his willingness to embrace the internet early and to try things is to be commended, his regular failures to make his internet ventures successful has pretty clearly soured him on the internet entirely over the years.
Indeed, over the past few years, Murdoch or Murdoch surrogates (frequently News Corp's CEO Robert Thomson) have bashed the internet at every opportunity, no matter how ridiculous. Almost all of these complaints can be summed up simply: big internet companies are making money and News Corp. isn't -- and therefore the problem is with those other companies which should be forced to give News Corp. money.
[...] Rupert is thinking along similar lines, and earlier this week released a bizarre and silly statement saying Facebook should start paying news sites "carriage fees" a la cable companies:
The time has come to consider a different route. If Facebook wants to recognize 'trusted' publishers then it should pay those publishers a carriage fee similar to the model adopted by cable companies. The publishers are obviously enhancing the value and integrity of Facebook through their news and content but are not being adequately rewarded for those services. Carriage payments would have a minor impact on Facebook's profits but a major impact on the prospects for publishers and journalists.
We've seen this kind of thinking many times before. First the argument was used against Craigslist. Then Google. And now, apparently, Facebook. The short version is "these internet companies are making money, we news companies aren't -- ergo, the successful internet companies should be paying the failing news companies."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @02:57AM (4 children)
Trusted Sources? Murdoch? Your kidding.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:03AM
No, my kidding, not yourn! Fairly Unbalanced News! And Remember, you can take the Megan Kelly out of the Fox News, but you cannot take the Fox News out of the Megan Kelly!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @04:38AM (2 children)
Rupert is just milking Lex Luther's clever rebranding of the information issue as a trust issue, and he'd better, because fighting the real argument would be Rupert bringing a knife to a gun fight; Fox News Viewers Uninformed, NPR Listeners Not, Poll Suggests [forbes.com].
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:19AM
Ah... and that started sooo promising.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 28 2018, @06:13PM
Your linked article suggesting that NPR listeners are more informed than Fox News watchers is dated 2011, and that supposition was most certainly true back then. Now the "informed readers" are the drudge/zerohedge/pol/national interest/specialty IRC and Usenet crowd.
Hindsight is always 20/20 -- only 5 or so few years ago, I considered Salon/The Economist/The New Yorker "informed reading." It's like that dumb phase you go through in high school where you color your hair blue and listen to grunge and think racism is bad.
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday January 28 2018, @02:59AM (1 child)
Get your CEO hat on and go tell Facebook we want lots of moneys too before they give it all away to Murdoch. Private Caribbean islands don't buy themselves.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 28 2018, @06:15PM
Every Facebook user should be granted back pay for all of the comments and discussions they have posted since Facebook's inception. Facebook, after all, ...is people!
(Score: 3, Touché) by Snotnose on Sunday January 28 2018, @04:29AM
I won't compete with you, I won't spread fake news. I will buy food and pay rent.
Guess it sux2bme, cuz after rent and food I can hopefully afford my uverse bill, and heaven help me if I need to see a doctor for an antibiotic that will kill me if I don't get it, but will prevent me from paying rent if I do get it.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Entropy on Sunday January 28 2018, @04:31AM (2 children)
The bar for being more truthful than mainstream media isn't particularly high.
(Score: 5, Informative) by captain normal on Sunday January 28 2018, @04:45AM (1 child)
Yes, but it is still way higher than Faux News.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @04:35AM
Don't just leave it a Fox. CNN's idea of news, posted on their main page earlier today with a great big picture, was the CNN EXCLUSIVE that Trump's DC hotel was more expensive and more vacant than similar DC hotels. WOW. CNN is digging pretty deep in the barrel for today's two minute hate.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/27/politics/trump-hotel-occupancy-rates-data/index.html [cnn.com]
Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism material. Ted Turner must be one proud man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @05:32AM (1 child)
Won't happen. Not if they are thinking deeply about it. Who gives control of their business into the hands of a potential competitor?
Hmmmm, plenty of companies: Yahoo (Google), Toys 'R Us (Amazon), IBM (Microsoft), Mozilla (Google), Apple (Google), plenty of businesses (SAP and Oracle), lots of sellers (Amazon).
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @05:44AM
A peer-based news creation model, with external parties (multiple parties, including Fox) vetting specific aspects of a story would be better. That way you have multiple witnesses to a story. Story consumers can choose how they apportion trust to different witnesses. Vetting could be completely manual or AI facilitated and partially automated, paid or unpaid. sonamchauhan
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @08:53AM (2 children)
Conservatives don't like change, by definition.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:16AM (1 child)
Conservatives don't like change, by definition.
I think it is slightly more accurate to say that Conservatives prefer other people to change in order to preserve the status quo. In other words, you should change to accomodate me.
It is one of those irregular verbs:
I choose
You compromise
He submits
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @06:06PM
Liberals like change for change sake, by definition.
I think it is slightly more accurate to say that Liberals prefer to force other people to change. In other words, you should change but I don't have to..
It is one of those irregular verbs:
I choose
You compromise
He submits
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:24PM
Then close the doors.
...or just flip him the bird.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @08:21AM
So, not only does he want to be labelled a trusted news source, he wants to get paid for the privilege? Well, that's easy. Ignore him. Don't label his stuff a trusted news source, and don't pay.
Just like certain European news sites that wanted to get paid every time Google News sends a potential new customer their way. Google stopped sending potential customers.