Rupert Changes His Mind

A $3.4bn loss is enough to make anyone think again and that is exactly what Rupert Murdoch is in the process of doing. After once declaring that the subscription model for online news does not work, last week he declared himself confident that his company could produce "significant revenues from the sale of digital delivery of newspaper content" and that “we intend to charge for all our news websites.”

Radical thinking or panicked knee jerk reaction? Only time will tell, but we have been down this path before with the New York Times and they were forced to pull back more than two two years ago (although the Paper of Record is reportedly looking at the subscription model in another format again).

Those, like me, who remain fascinated by the future shape of journalism and the print media in the digital age might find some enlightenment in this week’s Time Magazine which was delivered to me via snail mail on Saturday morning (I remain a luddite at heart). It contains an excellent article by James Poniewozik which can be found online HERE.

Definitely worth a read.