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Full TExt of Robert Peston's Edinburgh lecture on digital news : There is a debate here about two kinds of fairness. There is the fairness of ensuring a level playing field for players in a commercial market. And there is the fairness of the distribution of information and knowledge to all who need it, irrespective of their material circumstances. These are two different kinds of fairness.
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Al Jaz Int debate on media with Greg Dyke/John Owen
SacredFacts
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts" Daniel Patrick Moynihan
« July 2009 | Main | September 2009 »
August 2009
August 31, 2009
links for 2009-08-31
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August 30, 2009
Murdoch's McTaggart
News International's business is based in the UK on three things:
- print, which is suffering a major advertising downturn on top of the profound disruption of digital, and needs to persuade readers to pay for news online.
- Satellite distribution, which is being undermined by the promise of broadband and IPTV and the interactivity, greater consumer choice and lower costs they offer.
- Premium content and sports rights, potentially undermined by Ofcom proposals to force it to share with rival broadcasters.
So perhaps the least surprising event of the summer was that James Murdoch would use the platform of the McTaggart Lecture to swipe out at Ofcom and the BBC. Whether or not you agree with his ideology, it was a bravura performance.
He cited Orwell's 1984 and the threat of an authoritarian future while indulging in his own form of Newspeak. Just as Fox News tries to redefine "Fair and Balanced" as meaning Pro-Republican, so for Murdoch public funding equals "state sponsored" with all its authoritarian overtones, and Independence is now equated with profit. It's more than semantics. This is how terms of debate are shifted. Though I doubt I was the only one to be struck by the Gordon Gekko cadence of his pay off line: "The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit."
The debate over the right mix of funding and regulation for Britain's digital media will run for a year or two yet. And no-one in the BBC can be unaware of the arguments and allegations about market distortion.
What's missing so far is discussion of the public good. Because many commercial operations are struggling, the answer for some is to close or pull down the BBC's activities. A lowest common-denominator approach. Surely part of the justification for public funding and public media is to provide during conditions of market failure?
I certainly don't agree that the market, unfettered, will provide all the public require. I'm with the BBC's Robert Peston: “Having just lived through the greatest failure in history to distribute financial resources in an efficient and equitable way, we certainly shouldn’t assume that a commercial digital market in news will distribute information in a way that would support a healthy democracy."
Will Hutton put it colourfully in The Observer, "The biggest risk is not of an Orwellian state. It is that our society is being taken over by a new class of super-rich unaccountable oligarchs – in finance and in the media – with little interest in our culture, civilisation or vitality of our public realm."
The threat of a media giant distorting markets plays more than one way. Ask Virgin, BT or others trying to compete with Sky.
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August 29, 2009
links for 2009-08-29
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FT.com / Comment / Opinion - How Murdoch’s upstart became the status quo
David Chance, ex BskyB, on News Int fight with Ofcom: reality is rather different now that Sky has moved from a plucky start-up to an established incumbent. Sky has become the new “narrow elite” in British broadcasting. Mr Murdoch’s warnings about the danger of these elites and their ability to capture governments and work to the detriment of consumers are as true today they were 20 years ago.
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James Murdoch hits out at BBC and regulators at Edinburgh TV festival | Media | guardian.co.uk
The full text of James Murdoch McTaggart lecture attacking BBC as "threat to independent journalism." |The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit. "
(tags: bbc murdoch mctaggart news journalism digital internet future futureofnews)
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August 28, 2009
links for 2009-08-28
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the real business model for news companies in the future - build a community around news and stories and maybe make a little in advertising, but the real money will come from leveraging the position in the community to offer services no-one else can.
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Steve Outing's presentation at the Aspen focos09 get together
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August 27, 2009
links for 2009-08-27
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I dont agree with all of them and the commenter is right they dont pay - but they do give the skills to survive...
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Summary of the work on the economics of news and encouragement to keep experimenting
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Anyone going into news now thinking that they can be a John Simpson, a Kate Adie or a Christiane Amanpour is living in a fantasy world
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news organizations should be trying to reach more people and engage with them more deeply. They should seek hyperdistribution.
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Future of international news? Collaboration across outlets
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August 26, 2009
links for 2009-08-26
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Government’s role is to strike a balance between the needs of rights holders on the one hand and society’s need for fast, efficient and lightly regulated networking on the other. That’s difficult to do and it will take time to work out, which is why Lord Carter set aside three years for the job. It’s not something that should be rushed on the basis of a dinner conversation in Corfu.
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August 24, 2009
links for 2009-08-24
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avoid running out of battery on the move
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Personal on move wifi hot spot technology
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August 21, 2009
links for 2009-08-21
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David Weinberger on Transparency as the new objectivity and Tom Friedman's F-bomb. More wisdom here than in ten average posts on changing journalism....
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In an unusually robust collaboration using Facebook Connect, the Huffington Post is launching a feature on Monday called “HuffPost Social News,” which lets readers create a personalized social networking-like news page on the Huffington Post
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psychology of search and inquiry
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August 20, 2009
links for 2009-08-20
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New Business Models for News from CUNY
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August 19, 2009
links for 2009-08-19
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Stephen Fry on the ridiculous survey and debate about pointlessness of Twitter content. Couldnt have put it better myself (which is why he's a national treasure and I am deservedly not.) :-)
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