The future of online news

[Peikko 1,575]

News Corporation executives have met counterparts from rival newspapers including the New York Times and Washington Post to discuss forming a consortium to charge for online news content, according to a US report today.

Jonathan Miller, News Corp's chief digital officer, is believed to have talked to executives from the Times and Post, along with other major US newspaper publishers including Hearst and Tribune, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The meetings, held in recent weeks, were to discuss forming a consortium that would charge for news content on the web and mobile devices, reported the LA Times, which is published by Tribune.

Earlier this month the News Corp chairman and chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, revealed that the company planned to start charging for content on all its news websites in the US, UK and elsewhere in the next year.

"Quality journalism is not cheap," said Murdoch. "The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites."

Murdoch added that he had completed a review of the possibility of charging and that he was willing to take the risk of leading the industry towards a pay-per-view model: "I believe that if we're successful, we'll be followed fast by other media."

He said he was thinking in terms of "this fiscal year" to introduce charges. He added that News Corp would avoid a migration of readers to free sites by "making our content better and differentiated from other people".

The charging model will be extended to red-top tabloids such as the Sun and the News of the World. Murdoch said he was keen to capitalise on the popularity of celebrity stories: "When we have a celebrity scoop, the number of hits we get now are astronomical."

He accepted that there could be a need for furious litigation to prevent stories and photographs being copied elsewhere: "We'll be asserting our copyright at every point."

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I like this bit best:

"Quality journalism is not cheap," said Murdoch.

He's not wrong of course, but considering some of his news outlets, somewhat funny all the same