Murdoch, Wicked Witch of the Web?

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

This week, the Guardian, among others, brought into question recent comments by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch on News Corp. plans to incorporate a “pay wall” to all news media online. What caught most attention was Murdoch’s mentioning (see below) of the Daily Telegraph –NOT owned by Murdoch– among those media outlets being “worked on.”

Speculation has escalated as to whether illegal communication between media companies is taking place, and how this could  affect journalistic institutions that are not planning to charge for content.

Anti-trust laws, which vary internationally, generally prohibit mass media corporations from disclosing information on sales strategies, with the intent to keep prices competitive and optimize the benefit for consumers. It is widely believed that media conglomerates have played their part in watering down news, and manipulating news focus especially in the past 20 years of 24-hour news.

If it is true, that News Corp. has been discussing strategies for selling web content with other companies, then the particulars of these conversations MUST be revealed. What is worse than having a poor media is having ALL media teamed up to price-gouge consumers and leave only one company in charge of deciding what news is important.

Murdoch also announced that tentative plans to begin charging for content will probably not make the June 2010 deadline, perhaps a few extra gasps of air for those hoping to axe the plan. A couple of Murdoch’s American publications include the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.

Lawyers have noted that regulators would step in if inappropriate discussions took place between companies.

“Competitors should not be discussing business strategy for charging for online content and should certainly not be discussing pricing,” said Alan Davis, of legal firm Pinset Masons, in an interview with the Guardian.

Roy Greenslade, columnist for the Guardian, expressed concern Thursday as to whether such coordinated pay walls would create news “cartels” and how this might restrict editorial content distributed by the companies:

“Doubtless, there are other matters for the wall-builders to think about too, such as the amount of editorial copy they plan to seal off. Will it mean all news stories or some? How will they agree to handle breaking news? Will all comment and analysis go behind the wall? And all features, or some?”

Greenslade also made a point to spell out all of Murdoch’s comments from the original Telegraph interview:

“No. We are working very, very hard at this but I wouldn’t promise that we’re going to meet that date. I’m not prepared to comment on that all. It’s a work in progress. There’s a huge amount of work going on, not just with our sites, but with other people like your company.”

Now, regardless of our own stances on who should control the media of the near future, I think we can all agree that conglomerates should not be able to privately discuss plans charge.

Scenario: you login to NYT online one morning to find that you must pay a mandatory fee to see any content from now on, swiftly you move to WaPo –same thing– so on and so on… what questions would you have for the news companies in terms of how they came to such prices and how they now choose what stories to headline and what stories to dismiss? If they are teamed up in charging, would they not also be teamed up to all headline the most “profitable” news?

If the choice ultimately comes down to government-supported free news vs. conglomerate charged news, ask yourself this:

Do I want the media to be controlled by people who want to make the most money by any means necessary (like Murdoch) or the people who have at least charmed the public for a legislative seat (the Federal Government)?

The deep and dark history of the INTERNET

The Guardian lays down the history of the web

So, this week I want to share something I found on the Guardian that’s a little off topic, but mutli-platform,  informative and relevant to journalists nonetheless.  Last Friday, the Guardian posted A People’s History of the Internet: from Arpanet in 1969 to today.

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the first connection between two host computers when Bill Duvall, from Stanford, and Charlie Kline, of UCLA, attempted a remote login.  They had to connect by typing each letter of “login” …and they only got to the letter “o” before the system crashed!  Luckily it only took them another hour or so to work out the kinks, or else you might not be reading this today.

Ironically, some progressive thinker thought it would make good science fiction to take a glimpse into the future, with a movie depicting how shopping and bills would be paid on screens much like the monitors you’re reading off now. The Guardian notes, and I LOL’d when I saw it, the 60’s misogynistic gender roles were also part of this man’s idea of the future. “What the wife selects on her console, will be paid for on his counterpart console…”  It’s too bad the flip hair-do and egg chairs didn’t make it past 1982…

By 1971, people had already begun compiling and sharing important files with Project Gutenberg –ironically, the first file shared was also the first replicating computer virus. What was it you might ask?  The one and only Declaration of Independence.  So let me get this straight –we can copy, cut, stitch, paint, stretch and skew our nation’s founding document legally, but we can’t get a free song by great deceased musicians like Hendrix, Bob Marley and Michael Jackson??  >:-&    …yeah emoticon history started in 1982 :-)

“Imagine, if you will, sitting down to your morning coffee,and turning on your home computer to read today’s newspaper.”

All journalists today should cry after they laugh at this video from 1981, highlighting the prototype for what would become the deathly infection we call online journalism today. If only there was a way to go back in time and tell this woman to turn the terror alert level up or break into a swine flu story….anything but publicity for online… just kidding (sort of).

Oh, but how smug she sounds when hacking down the $10 online paper for the 20 cent street edition…

Even the first-ever blog is recognized, though I’d bet this guy would have been a little less crass if he knew he’d become well-known for it (he uses “s***” in the headlines of his first three posts). Justin is still typing away too, only his subject matter is a bit more flattering, and his layout is a little (but not much) more up to date.

Of course, we see Al Gore and Tim Berners-Lee’s contributions (by the way he officially apologized for all the slashes in URLs recently) are noted, as well as the rapid rise of facebook, YouTube and I Can Has Cheez Burger (link there for the depraved).

I highly recommend you take a look at this Guardian link. It helped demystify some of my thoughts about the origin and purpose of the web, and if you’re a slightly paranoid but technologically-dependent loon like myself, you will find the history of this vastly expanding digital universe as neat as I do.

IGOR… THEY’VE DONE IT!!! Well, at least CJR gave it a good try…

Columbia University (Wikimedia Commons)

This week was a jackpot in terms of acquiring a comprehensive background voice for this topic of news profit models and shrinking papers.  I found a story by former WaPo Chief Editor Leonard Downie Jr. and Columbia University’s Michael Schuson, called “Finding a new model for news reporting” from October 19. By the second graf I was engaged and knew the topic of my next blog post, as the authors write:

“American society must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reporting — as society has, at much greater expense, for public education, health care, scientific advancement and cultural preservation, through varying combinations of philanthropy, subsidy and government policy. It may not be essential to save or promote any particular news medium, including print newspapers. What is paramount is preserving independent, original, credible reporting, whether or not it is profitable, and regardless of the medium in which it appears.”

“DITTO!!!” was the sound everyone in my apartment building could hear at 8 p.m. Thursday night. Finally, I found someone who combined all of my thoughts and cumulative theories from classes and everyday rhetoric between other J students… But there has to be a catch, right? Downie and Schudson couldn’t have possibly solved the newspaper crisis in two online WaPo pages, could they??

Well, it turns out, no –even they are human.

BUT, as I soon found out, the purpose of the article was to point us to an extensive report in the Columbia Journalism Review called  “The Reconstruction of American Journalism.”

“IGOR, THEY HAVE DONE IT!!!!!”

This was the second exclamation barreled through the ear drums of my neighbors Thursday night. Of course, since many of you reading this probably haven’t heard of the report, the ideas set forth are not likely to be as potent as I’d hoped. Nonetheless, I have found much of it to be worthwhile and in-depth in terms of research and relevant anecdotes.

Readers take note, the report is 17 pages long, and can seem more analytical than prescriptive at times, so come equipped with a Snickers and a caramel macchiato. Honestly, as I’m posting this, I have only brought myself to bear 5 pages of this somewhat gloomy assessment. That said, I will lend you this tasty morsel:

“The questions that this transformation raises are simple enough: What is going to take the place of what is being lost, and can the new array of news media report on our nation and our communities as well as—or better than—journalism has until now? More importantly—and the issue central to this report—what should be done to shape this new landscape, to help assure that the essential elements of independent, original, and credible news reporting are preserved?”

All in all, I think it is worthwhile to publish reports like this. They are the proverbial “pep talks” for journalists with ten plus years of work in their (hopeful) future. I hope to find more optimistic selections as I continue through the report, and will keep you updated on any recent developments, so to say.

A big ole’ honkin slice of (wheat?) Texas toast

Texas Oil Man T. Boone Pickens at UMD - Photo Brian Hooks

Unlike posts of the past, this will focus on an organization that has yet to launch. But, only a few weeks before its world premier, The Texas Tribune has already started to receive some flack from around the professional journalism world. With a mission “to promote civic engagement and discourse on public policy, politics, government, and other matters of statewide concern” how could they go wrong–right?

The Tribune sets out its goals on its rough draft site, citing issues across the board –immigration, education, transportation, health care, water, the environment, criminal justice, energy, poverty– the whole nine yards. It’s understandable how journalists who have been in cohorts with ad-revenue outlets for their entire careers would be skeptical of donation run journalism.

The Tribune’s “selling” point is like a trip down Jour 100 lane:

“Like clean air and clean water—undeniable public goods—journalism in the public interest is too vital to a civilized society, to a functioning democracy, to be left to the vagaries of the free market.”

The Huffington Post ran a blog by John Thornton, one of the key investors of the Tribune, in which he defends non-profit news. Thornton discusses the pitfalls of having advertisers at the reins of a major news outlet that can no longer afford its top 10% of journalists. I should note, the post also seems to be a set up for a two paragraph promo for his brainchild (the Tribune).

John Thornton again in an October posted a response to a critique by Slate’s Jack Shafer, where Thornton says, “the forty years between Kennedy and Clinton were an accident of economic and demographic history … great journalism thrived in a relatively monopolistic industry structure, because there was plenty to go around for editors and shareholders.”

Shafer cites a book from 1999 by James Ledbetter, where Ledbetter mocks National Public Radio’s mission statement created in 1971 as being too idealistic. Ledbetter says the statement sounds as if it were made by “existential psychologists” rather than journalists or businessmen. Shafer goes on to claim that non-profit donors wish to reap “psychic income” as opposed to the monetary capital of their advertising counterparts.  Shafer explains, “they want to feel that their money has done good, or at least caused ‘evil’ some pain.”

I think Shafer should speak to former president of NPR, and Philip Merrill College of Journalism DEAN Kevin Klose, who brought in a cool $200 million to the company after the death of philanthropist–and hamburger lady– Joan Kroc. That’s right, no income for Kroc, psychic or non-psychic. Shafer might also want to take note how Klose helped to DOUBLE listeners of NPR in the ten years that followed Ledbetter’s snarky analysis.

AND I DIGRESS… but all in all, the Tribune has over $3 million in contributions, making it in the same general range of other non-profits (Voice of San Diego, MinnPost, St. Louis Beacon, Washington Independent ) just fitting into diapers. We shall see what direction the Tribune takes in its first steps early November, hopefully I will have good news.

The Huffington Post goes on a non-profit diet

Arianna Huffington - Copyright free - Wikimedia Commons

Arianna Huffington, the famous figurehead for The Huffington Post, announced in April the launching of a new non-profit branch of the news blog giant, called The Huffington Post Investigative Fund.  With a neatly truncated nickname like the HuffFund (yes that’s three f’s in consecutive order), how could they go wrong, right?  In all seriousness, the HuffFund is one of the first large efforts by an online organization to run completely non-profit.  Regardless of whether it succeeds or not, the HuffFund will serve as a prototype for online news blogs and may provide insight into the future of investigative journalism.

The HuffFund specializes in medium length, “outside of the box” investigative journalism. While the big guns like USA Today, WaPo and NYT are equipped with full teams of investigative reporters, the HuffFund operates with only a handful of staff, interns and -most notably- freelance and layed-off reporters. Since it is all online, it utilizes its blog, video, photo and audio –usually two or more forms of media per story.  I really like that the stories are not headlines one would normally see in the big papers (see Anatomy of an Attack Ad and EPA Fails to Inform Public About Weed-Killer in Drinking Water).

I think the HuffFund will excel with stories like the attack ad investigation, because the reporters have the publishing flexibility to orchestrate in-depth stories and 5 minute plus videos that seem more like mini documentaries than news segments.  This story in particular is captivating because it sets a scene for the reader that many have seen recently, ads in protest of health care reform.  By the fourth graf, the reporters are already showcasing their investigative muscle with references to public records and a rundown of the original launchers of political commentator Dick Morris’ new anti-reform campaign “The League of American Voters.”

The only flaw with this story, and other HuffFund stories like it, is that NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE ARE READING THEM.  I say this because the website is still a bit archaic in design, and there are only a few publications outside of HuffPo that are covering the opening of the HuffFund. The website could be a little more user-friendly, but it does have quick photo enlarging qualities and a nice “Related Stories” menu for each story.

With a $1.7 million budget, the HuffFund will be around for at least a year or two, if nothing ever catches on. But with a staff of seasoned journalists and former editors from the Washington Post, 60 Minutes, Newsweek and the Chicago Tribune, the HuffFund should at least have a few swings at breaking some big stories before the well runs dry.

The International Center for Media and the Public Agenda

The International Center for Media and the Public Agenda (ICMPA), based at the University of Maryland, has produced several key studies and, together with the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), brings together some of the best journalism professionals and students from around the globe to discuss, debate and propose solutions addressing problems associated with minimal media literacy among consumers.  Studies by these organizations, as well as other major independent institutes, have found a distinct correlation between the social growth of countries and their levels of media literacy, freedoms of the press and media transparency.

The Czech Republic and Sweden have legislation in place that makes media literacy education mandatory.  As a result, they also have some of the highest percentages of civically active citizens, according to Dr. Paul Mihailidis of the ICMPA.  Mihailidis studied media literacy in Sweden’s secondary education systems and found a direct link between young people’s perceptions of media reliability and their own sense of civic duty.  “In Sweden, the consensus was to produce informed and knowledgeable citizens… they must understand how information works and be aware of its civic implications, esepecially in a media-saturated society,” said Mihailidis in a lecture on media literacy.  He suggested the American educational system would be reintroduced into the forefront of educational standards if media literacy is made into a regular practice.

The road to media awareness hasn’t been easy for the Czechs though; for 20 years, from 1969 to 1989, the Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia) was suppressed by the communist U.S.S.R.  The media, which had blossomed in the “Prague Spring of 1968″ was quickly crippled when the militaries of five Warsaw Pact countries invaded the country and killed dozens of resisting citizens in capital city.  The Czech Republic’s mandatory media literacy education in elementary school is just one example of how the establishment of a reliable media can improve a country’s education and economic system.

The definition of media transparency is the willingness of a news group to publish and discuss information regarding its own practices and publications.  A study conducted by the ICMPA ranked 25 of the most prominent news sources in the world based on particular criteria including accountability, corrections, staff policies and reporting policies.  The British newspaper The Guardian was ranked first overall, followed by The New York Times and a select group of global and nonprofit news companies.  CNN was ranked the fifth-lowest, directly under Fox News and one above the Al Jazeera English.  This illustrates the unfortunate detachment between broadcast news and thoroughly-researched journalism in newspapers and magazines.

Capitalist conglomerations have created the biggest media “illiteracy” problem in history.  A handful of super companies known as the “Big Six” own a vast majority of the media outlets in the United States.  These companies have what some consider to be monopolies on multimedia platforms. University of California Santa Barbara professor and author W. James Potter says in his book Media Literacy, “Critics fear that this trend has already put too much power into the hands of a very few people.”

A nice bee in Austria

Salzburg, Austria