Rupert Murdoch is flexing his media-mogul muscles. In an interview with Sky News he said that News Corp. will block Google from indexing any of its content and charge for access to online content.
"We'd rather have fewer people coming to our website, but paying," Murdoch told Sky News editor David Speers.
Blocking Google from indexing your Web site is certainly a great way to get fewer people to visit your site, but it's unclear how that would increase paid subscribers.
And now Fox News is going after bloggers who rely on YouTube video clips of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly to criticize the network's right-wing commentary. One popular YouTube channel News1News was suspended on Nov. 12. News1news archived the most outrageous statements made by Fox News bloviators.
As a result, now blog posts linking to News1news videos have a big gaping whole in them - words with no video support.
There used to be such a thing as "Fair Use," but not anymore. Fair Use is supposed to allow anyone to copy and distribute portions of news, books, movies and radio for any purpose, usually to add to original reporting or to criticize the original source. Where's the Electronic Frontier Foundation when you need them?
Judging by Murdoch's statement about blocking Google search indexing and Fox News' war against YouTube and bloggers, this isn't over.
Stay tuned.
More coverage
Fox News Declares Cyberwar on Liberal Blogosphere
Murdoch On Blocking Search Engines: "I Think We Will"
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Comments
Mr. Murdoch is in for a rude awakening. No one is going to pay for being indoctrinated by his propaganda. Those days are past. If he blocks non-paying users, they will simply go elsewhere for their news. If all the "Major" media starts charging, no one will use their services and these media will no longer be "Major". People have awakened to the fact that the media is an arm of those who have conquered America and enslaved the sheeple. The slaves are becoming more aware of who is swinging the whip.
I thought the whole point of propaganda was to get to a large a population as possible? Putting up an extortion wall between the FoxProganda(tm) and regular punters does seem at odds outcomes of Goebbels' Propaganda Methods for Dummies: to indoctrinate the masses.
Or is this just the NewsCorpse negative reality machine in action where yes=no and freedom=tyranny?
"There used to be such a thing as "Fair Use," but not anymore."
Reading this post it testament to that!
Don't be ridiculous, John, people have been paying for propaganda for years - NewsWeak (sic), Times, US Snooze, etc. It just seems that selling it became an issue when the conservative voice began to challenge the "established" mainstream media.
"GTRocketman" you do realize that this "conservative" media empire called News Corp. IS part of the mainstream media.
It always cracks me up when people try to portray these extremely wealthy and powerful corporations and businessmen as some sort of underdog.
Conservatives are almost exclusively part of the establishment. Generally the establishment is largely made up of wealthy and powerful CEOs and corporations.
Not that there aren't powerful liberals, but let's keep it real.
Who cares....conservative or liberal. If a business can't figure out how to thrive in the modern world, they are dinosaurs and will go away. I am looking forward to seeing the end of these creeky old dinosaurs. I just hope that someone figures out how to run a modern day news source in a profitable way. The old guard have been doing a terrible job anyway, so it's a great thing to see them teetering on extinction. I mean, if I read posts from most of the articles linked to from google, 2/3rds are just rehashing some bad AP article. If you read 2 or 3 of them, you can usually find examples where the "reporter" didn't even understand the AP stuff before they "wrote" their own. It's time for a change, and I hope rupert isn't part of the future.
You're exactly right mojo. I've been wracking my brain for the last year and a half trying to figure out how to make quality in-depth journalism profitable.
Hopefully it will all work out and we won't be just left with snarky blog posts and blurbs like this one. But for now, that's the best we can do.
People are going to have to pay for it, but people aren't going to pay The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Washington Times, Weekly Standard, CS Monitor, HuffPost, Daily KOS, etc. That's just too expensive and impractical.
I'd like to see news organizations focus on readers rather than advertisers, but it's a tough nut to crack.
this is great news! this means less people will have to listen to so called news spewing from his so called news agency.
bye bye rupert wish I could say it was nice knowing you but it really wasn't.
You mention him going after "Liberal" Youtube videos in the headline, but he has gone after ALL FoxNews videos on youtube, no matter what the politcal leaning of the content. Im sure he figures that if people will pay for Sean and Rush online, they will pay for his content too.
With Rupert not about liberal/conservitive viewpoints, it's about the profit.
And thats all that matters.
Why in the world would I spend my hard earned money on hearsay?
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