Rupert Murdoch Wants News Corp. Sites Off Google
Much like the cranky little guy who takes his basketball and storms home, Rupert Murdoch wants any and all stories published by his media outlets to be removed from the index of search engines. According to the Guardian, Murdoch recently told the Australian press (video after the break) that stories from News Corp. outlets (e.g., The Wall Street Journal, the Sun) would be pulled from sites like Google once the company's content becomes strictly pay-to-read. The chairman stopped short of saying exactly when all News Corp. content would become subscriber-based, and thus removed from such sites. Still, this proclamation comes as no surprise. Last month, Murdoch called out Google -- referring to the site as "content kleptomaniacs." But if you ask us, Murdoch is fighting a losing battle. You can't expect people to start paying for content they're accustomed to getting for free. Despite supposed subscription walls on News Corp. sites, people have had a relatively easy time reading without paying -- and that's on the company's own sites. Before "taking his ball and going home," Murdoch might do well to consider this: Just as the people on the court will find another ball, people on the Web will find other ways to get their news. The game will continue. [From: Guardian and Newsweek]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
AltairAntares said 1:08PM on 11-09-2009
Totally agree, and even if all the news companies decided to leave the web news business (by making themselves pay only), then someone else would come along and build a web buisness that would do the same thing with out all the crap that his type of companies have today using AP. *shrug*
He's attempting to pull the same strategy as a union, unfortunately for him there's thousands of other workers willing to work for less then he is now...
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James Albert said 1:37PM on 11-09-2009
OMG.. Why isn't he dead yet...Like the other Fossils of Print media. He hasn't learned that u can't make money restricting content..ony by providing Value added content. Thats his problem.. he wants the web to run like his obsolete news empire. He will never learn and things will never change until all the old guard wither and die. Half his crappy stories are Just regurgitated AP posts anyway.
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Psycros said 2:19PM on 11-09-2009
So does that mean Google is "regurgitating" Murdoch's content, and by extension AP's as well?
Hey doofus, about 90% of the newspapers and nearly that many TV and radio news outlets rely on AP. As for Murdoch, he's hardly obsolete - he owns Fox and Sky News which have their own field gathering (although they use AP and probably every other source as well). don't fault anyone for wanting somebody to pay for their product - would YOU work for free? However, the only model that makes sense is a bundled scheme, i.e. paying one modest monthly subscription to get access to multiple sites. If Yahoo had a clue they'd be all over this, pitching it hard to Murdoch and the rest of the industry. Being the also-ran of portals, nobody will go nuts if they become a pay-content middleman, whereas Google could never get away with it.
Leader Desslok said 2:25PM on 11-09-2009
OMG! I've been praying for this to happen. Anything that might reduce the number of people being exposed to RM's sensationalist right-wing lunacy is welcome, as far as I'm concerned. I've actually contacted Google on several occasions about providing an option on the Google News page to customize the content there (also see exclude anything News Corp related). LOL! If he gets them to agree to this he will have just done us all a HUGE favor.
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AltairAntares said 11:58PM on 11-09-2009
Less loony the ABC! :p
(no, I don't really want to make a fight, but that was a target just too big to avoid...)
Dazed... said 2:26PM on 11-09-2009
With google the likely source for finding that new ball isnt this kind of a "cutting off your nose to spite the face" situation? Anyway, users will still go to google, news corp will just lose the traffic that would be sent its way. Good decision Murdoch.
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voodkokk said 5:02PM on 11-09-2009
Who cares? Most of it is jibberish anyway.
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fred mahr said 7:43AM on 11-10-2009
Pay only news sources would quickly lose clout to the free sources of information and doom thenselves to has been status. Use free information to bait people to pay for more. But banning access for all information is self defeating. I like Fox and find their news equal & balanced but would find other sources for my news if I were forced to pay.
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mike westman said 8:07AM on 11-10-2009
he is a greedy pig...like is news and info is so hot....managed, manipulated and mucked up.....why pay for cheeze wiz when you can have good cheddar for free
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mike westman said 8:10AM on 11-10-2009
Look at the Wall St. Journal.....it used to be readable...a bit stodgy and really just a button down shirt....now it is hard and kind like a black shirt
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harsh8 said 12:11PM on 11-10-2009
The real question is: Why does one man have so much control over so many news outlets that we can only go through him to find out what is happening in the world?
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Franksfoil said 9:18AM on 11-10-2009
Although I don't like Murdoch, he's right in the fact that news outlets need to get paid or you are going to get nothing that looks like news. Forget the "citizen journalist" type BS, there is no one holding a day job that can put in the hours on the phone or in person to get the right interviews and do the story. It's insulting to think that an entire generation of people who studied their profession for years in college and worked their way up are being replaced by some 20 something in Topeka who thinks they can cover the White House or foreign countries by telepathy, I suppose, or some such means since you are not actually there.
Everyone needs some form of the mass media (although not filtered through people like Murdoch). The previous poster who said "someone" will do it but the problem is that the "someone" might be Murdoch and he will have no competing opinion because every other media could be out of business if they don't start getting paid. Frankly, what would be the problem with having a collection of mass payments in which everyone gave a dollar or two toward the cause?
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merrymg said 10:08AM on 11-10-2009
When you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you think you can do anything, have anything, influence anything you want..
I will no longer listen to fox news, read the Wall Street Journal or Sun articles, and stop paying for the Wall street Journal.
I refuse to put one more penny in his pocket!!!
He is the one with the big ego, not Google..
I love Google and the services it provides for FREE..
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travelbur said 10:25AM on 11-10-2009
I wonder if people would still use Google if they were a pay per month site... say $1.00 USD. You think they're worth a lot now.
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pd39 said 11:27AM on 11-10-2009
I can get the news from 85 million sources free of charge. Why would anybody PAY a news source? What a stupid and wasteful idea.
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Franksfoil said 2:26PM on 11-10-2009
The problem is that if no one can support themselves doing journalism then there won't be the quality everyone needs. You can have a story covered by PBS, NPR, CBN and FOX and you can bet that the same story is going to have a different emphasis. What if FOX was the only station to be able to afford to stay in DC to cover the news there? The coverage would then be whatever they choose to tape, whomever they choose to interview, however they choose to edit it and however they choose to position it during their broadcast.
You get what you pay for in news (like anything else). First to go, even though you might not have noticed it, is the more expensive foreign coverage. And you may say well, "I don't really care about what's happening in other countries" but there are those who make a good argument that we might not have been so blind to the circumstances which led to 9/11 if the networks hadn't have cut their foreign presence so much.
We all need good, factual information and the system that has traditionally provided this is hanging in the balance right now. The people who do this job conscientiously and well can't work for free forever. And, even if it appears that there is a lot of redundancy in coverage--it's a check and balance system against a potential monopoly network's substandard or lack of coverage. Therefore, it's not unreasonable to expect to pay a small amount (somehow) to maintain quality journalism.
Mikee said 10:47AM on 11-10-2009
Every website has a file called "robots.txt" which gives instructions to the crawling programs Google, Yahoo, and the like use to index websites. It takes two easy lines of text to be entered into that text file and it will tell the spiders to not index the site.
If Murdoch doesn't want Google indexing his site, he can pay one of his retarded monkey webmasters to block Google and that's all there is to it. The "robots.txt" file is nothing new, it has been a part of the internet for years and years.
This is nothing more than a publicity stunt, and it really shows how out of touch Murdoch is with the rest of the world.
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csl said 11:21AM on 11-10-2009
Yea, pay news sites...great idea, I'm sure that will work out well for your Rupert! (LMAO)
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rosevhouser99 said 12:50PM on 11-10-2009
another example of greed. just really fine as far as i'm concerned. who the hell needs news that are slanted toward the conservatives. take your news and wipe your behind with it.
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j said 1:25PM on 11-10-2009
google won't get a penny from me.
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