Wiki bias...

Just had a look at the wiki page of the two major Melbourne papers The Herald Sun and The Age looking for readership. What I found interesting was how The Age was classified under a summary and throughout the article as "politically aligned to the left". While I think this as true I think it would have been fair to describe The Herald Sun as "politically aligned to the right", the wiki article had no such indication of political bias. Yet it's pretty obvious been owned by Murdoch's Newscorps. Best known for the proud right leaning "Fox news" in US.

Anyway, having no political indication will not make me by the paper, at least while any Murdoch is running things

 

Rupert Murdock, New Corp to charge for online content

http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Rupert Murdock's News Corp has come out and posted a loss. According to the New York Time
$5.4 Billion dollars worth. The paper reported that

the Internet had created opportunities to distribute news cheaply — no need for printing presses or trucks — but said, “it has not made content free. We plan to charge for all our news Web sites.”

I personally don't think it will Murdocks plan will work, in the long term. Yes there is a cost to readership. Journalist should be paid. Yet there are a lot of very, very, good writers and journalist who don't get paid via the old time 'print media' days, they never got a opportunity. Maybe they never had the right qualifications. Google ads means that if good enough, writers with enough persistence can make money. The internet has broadened the volume of journalists and increased the means of distributing the work. It appears to have flattened the competition. Where anyone can break a story, without the overhead. It's a good thing.

This Mr Murdock in the new competition....