1) Do you agree with James Murdoch that the BBC should not be allowed to provide free news online? Why?
I do agree with James Murdoch's statement of the BBC not being allowed to provide 'free' news online, as I believe we as audiences pay for other types of media, e.g netflix or online movie sites. Therefore, just because it's news I don't believe we shouldn't have to pay for it, as we pay for most other types of media. Also, if audiences don't pay for News, loads of news industries will begin to decline.
So I think audiences should have to pay for online news.
2)Was Rupert Murdoch right to put his news content (The Times, The Sunday Times) behind a paywall?
In my opinion, I think Rupert Murdoch was right in putting his news content, The Times, The Sunday Times behind a paywall. By putting his content behind a paywall managed to improve the number of subscribers of both The Times and The Sunday Times. Figures show that The Times managed to gain 3,000 new subscribers in the first half of 2013. Nonetheless, the effect of free online news is still effecting these websites as they're still losing out on money/profit. Therefore, this portrays that even though Rupert's idea of putting his news behind a paywall won't be effective for a long time as there's still other online news that is free.
Choose two comments from below the Times paywall article - one that argues in favour of the paywall and one that argues against. Copy a quote from each and explain which YOU agree with and why.
"Or in other words, what's the point of having a web presence if you make no money?" -
"One thing's certain: there are no received truths any more. Maybe a locked-down paywall is the answer after all, to preserve a newspaper as an institution." - jasperjackson
These two quotes quote are in favour of the paywall, as they state that there's no point in having a website if you're not making any profit from it and therefore agrees with the point of having a paywall. Also, the second quote states having a paywall may be the only to preserve the newspaper institution.
I agree with this statement, as I believe there's no point investing your time into something if you don't benefit from it or make any profit.
"These papers are full of paid advertising. The fee model will never work."
-Jerry Harris
This quote is completely against the idea of having a paywall on online websites as he believes audiences won't pay for news if there's institutions that are providing news for free. I agree with this statement as I believe audiences would rather look at free news instead of paying for online news.
Why do you think the Evening Standard has bucked the trend and increased circulation and profit in the last two years?
One main reason due the evening standard increasing as it doubled the number of copies they were distributing. Not only did it benefit due to it's copies increasing, but it benefited due to it's audience remaining loyal and not buying other newspapers. The fact that the company increased their number of copies distributed more portrays that the customers enjoyed the content they were viewing.
Is there any hope for the newspaper industry or will it eventually die out? Provide a detailed response to this question explaining and justifying your opinion.
In my opinion, I don't think the newspaper industry will completely die out. I believe there will always be a generation that are always be interested in reading newspapers, and prefer reading paper copies of news rather than online news. However, I do believe it will be targeted at a smaller audience due to many people already switching to online news. I also believe journalists will start to lose out on jobs as there are always more than one story online and therefore journalists won't be able to investigate as much. Furthermore, despite the newspaper industry not completely dying out, I don't think there will be as many institutions left for audiences to switch from, as many institutions are already losing out on profit.
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