Newspapers: The Effect Of Online Technology

Do you agree with James Murdoch that the BBC should not be allowed to provide free news online? why?
If the BBC start charging people for news there are many impacts that this may have on society. The main impact being the divide between people who can afford to get news and those who cant, having an impact on the intellectual level of the lower class. furthermore its going to be difficult for the BBC to start charging for something that was free, people may ignore their new priciple and try to find other ways of accdessing news putting the BBCs company in a decline. I conclude that listening to James Murdoch may not be a smart business decision for the BBC, but may have a good impact on his newspaper industries as people may be willing to pay for news from the times and the sun than the BBC.

Was Rupert Murdoch right to put this news content (times and the sun) behind a pay-wall?
To some extent, it is right if you look at it from the profit aspect. Having the times and the sun on a paywall would mean that newspaper industry would make enough revenue to continue to survive and continue to grow. The paywall will also fund the times and suns staff as well as allowing them to have better resources for a high quality as a result the consumers would have a more reliable news, making them to continue paying the subscription.

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.

Why do you think the Evening Standard has bucked the trend and increased circulation and profit in the last two years?
At the start of this year, the Standard announced it was expanding its distribution from around 700,000 copies a day to closer to 900,000, which rather neatly explains the 27 percent increase in circulation recorded by the ABC. I think the main reason the evening standard has increased sales is because of people using trains and tubes everyday, they have no choice but to buy the newspaper as they cant access it through the internet.

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.
I think that having online content behind a pay wall will allow the industry to make more revenue to improve the quality of news we as the consumers are getting. The paywall also allows the journalist which are not credited financially for their hard work to be compensated, however this will only go to plan id their consumers are willing to pay that online subscription. which i personally think is not going to be successful. The consumers are more likely to find alternatives of reading an article going to newspaper which doesn't have a paywall.