By Rafat Ali
paidcontent.org
At the World Newspaper Congress here in Hyderabad this afternoon, Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS) CEO Les Hinton came out swinging against the world in general, as is the wont of every News Corp exec these days. More specifically, against “geeks bearing gifts”, “false gospel of the Web” and “out & out theives on the Internet”. . .:
“I was invited here to talk about the value of journalism. About how we at News Corp and Dow Jones have worked to create a debate about the future of journalism in the digital world.
We have deployed some lavish language to stir things up.
We have called Google a digital vampire, and a parasite.
We have pointed the finger at the content kleptomaniacs of the internet whose business models depend on purloining the expensive journalism of mainstream media.
But now a little context. I use Google just as most of do. What it does to enhance and enrich our lives makes it a true wonder of the age.
It is true that Google is at the heart of the crisis confronting journalism today. That their almost incalculable – and growing – power warrants great vigilance.
But the main, and most uncomfortable, truth is that this industry is the principal architect of its greatest difficulty today.
We are all allowing our journalism – billions of dollars worth of it every year – to leak onto the internet. We are surrendering our hard-earned rights to the search engines, and aggregators, and the out-and-out thieves of the digital age.
It is time to pause and recognize this – Free Costs Too Much.
News is a business, and we should not be ashamed to say so. . . ” READ FULL SPEECH
