Google chief: you can't charge for online news

Schmidt's missing the point

A massive amount of the "free content" that he's talking about is just reposting of stuff that's reported elsewhere, with a bit of editorial comment attached to it, a million blogs posting the same content over and over again. That content still has to be generated somehow, and what the Web 2.0 Pollyannas don't seem to want to acknowledge is that actually getting the news costs real money. "Free" doesn't send a foreign correspondent to Iraq or Belize or wherever. I don't have a good solution to how that gets paid for, especially in a culture where the regular turdspurts of online pundits are mistaken for news, but I'm damned sure that Schmidt's airy-fairy "but it's all free anyway" nonsense isn't it.

By nichomach0 on 18 Sep 2009

That's the point. The news posted on sites that cost money will be re-posted on other sites that don't. This will not make money, because people will not pay for something if they don't have to.

By phantombudgie on 18 Sep 2009

Which leaves the question...

...of who's going to actually pay for prodcuing the content in the first place. Essentially, phantombudgie, both you and Schmidt appear to be advocating an online news suicide pact - make it uneconomical for people/companies/organizations to gather news, since it's going to get leeched by people/companies/organizations that don't do any of the legwork themselves, and then wonder why there's no news anymore.

By nichomach0 on 18 Sep 2009

What happens once the news "escapes"?

It won't work for general news because news by its nature "leaks" and "escapes" when it is broadcast or is published. For example, someone listening to the radio news can then write a blog post about it. People will not pay for basic news. What they might pay for is insightful comment, in-depth articles and feature stories.

If news organisations are going to charge for their content (and why not, it costs money to make it) then they should be charging not for the basic news service but for the "extras"; e.g. video, etc.

By StoneLion on 18 Sep 2009

Murdoch has to do something different

The Murdoch sites ultimately need to do something different and not just report news that is available for free from the BBC. That will not be video as the BBC provides plenty of it.

They should probably focus on charging for the content that you would only otherwise be able to read by buying the newspaper (bearing in mind that newspapers' traditional role of reporting yesterday's news is largely redundant due to the internet and rolling news channels).

By halsteadk on 18 Sep 2009

An editor of the Wall Street Journal as far back as the 1940s identified the problem. People can get news from all sorts of sources, so what newspapers should be doing is, in a nutshell, 'telling people what’s going to happen next'. This is not exactly analysis, but neither is it plain-vanilla reporting. And as WSJ.com have found, people are willing to pay for this sort of content.

Charging for news has never really paid anyway, and newspapers historically have been heavily subsidised by classfied advertising. I would be very surprised if anyone is actually talking about doing that, more on the lines of getting people to subscribe to the crossword and stuff like that.

By c6ten on 18 Sep 2009

This ties in with Jamie Murdoch's recent attack on the BBC. The BBC is a major source of free online news content, so obviously it's a major obstacle to Murdoch's plan to increase his wealth and media control even further.

By Lacrobat on 19 Sep 2009