NDM: the effect of online technology on newspapers

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1) Do you agree with James Murdoch that the BBC should not be allowed to provide free news online? Why?

  I do not completely agree with James Murdoch stating that the BBC should not be allowed to provide free news online, I understand the point Murdoch is trying to put across in attempting to preserve the future of journalism, and I do agree that journalists should get paid in some form. 
I agree with James Murdoch to an extent 

However, I do not believe that all news organisations will ask their users to pay for the news as the news industry is vast and each have their own agendas and also audiences.  This would lead to a certain group of people being able to afford this: only those of the AB and possible C1 socio-economic groups would be able to afford to get their news, and, for me, I think we all have a right to know about what is going on in the world around us. 

2) Read this blog on the Times paywall three years on (note this is the UK Times - not the New York Times!)
3) Was Rupert Murdoch right to put his news content (The Times, The Sunday Times) behind a paywall?

I believe that Rupert Murdoch was right in putting his news content behind a paywall as content needs to be paid for to be of top quality, and it has proven to be successful. 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. 
The paywall provides a "sustainable profitability" as a reliance on advertising revenue and profit from other sources will only cause more harm than good in the long term. The Times has a reliable and loyal audience as it is a middle-class/upper-class newspaper so convincing people to "pay for news" has not had a significantly negative impact on News Uk.



4) 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.

• In favour of the paywall: The Times, more than any other paper, is more ready for a printless future, should it arise, as they just need to migrate users, in relatively low numbers. to the digital subscription. And it is having an almighty practice run to get it right. It doesn't need to create vast volumes of (crap) content that the Mail does and it has a very strong brand argument to Ad buyers. 

As much as I do agree with The Times having a strong brand image and being ready for a future that does not rely on print revenue, I believe that the paywall is also having a negative impact.The majority of users will get their sources of news from from news-aggregation sites such as google, and if not they will opt for free news, only those of the middle/upper classes who are of the slightly older generation will pay a subscription for The Times, and they are a minority. 

• Against paywall: "These papers are full of paid advertising. The fee model will never work."

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.


5) Read this article from the Media Briefing on the continuing decline of the newspaper industry. 
6) Why do you think the Evening Standard has bucked the trend and increased circulation and profit in the last two years?

 The Evening Standard has bucked the trend and has increased in circulation and profit in the last two years because of the fact that they distribute their newspapers to the public for free. Doing so during times such as the rush hour means that the newspaper can have a greater reach. Because of how newspapers they have made as they say 700,000 a day it’s more likely to 900,000 as they are pushing for rise of circulation. They made a 27% increase of flow by the ABC. But they lost 5% of their audiences meaning in that period it was going down slowly.

7) 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 believe that the newspaper industry will eventually die out as the years go by as majority of the newspapers are now adapting to demands for news online and closing down their print news i.e. The Independent and I believe many newspapers will follow. This is not surprising as millennial natives base the majority of their new intake from the digital world, and it is those of the older generation who prefer to get their news through print, and even they are switching to online news. Despite the fact that newspapers are however also adapting in terms of print from (Glamour magazine only giving out one/two prints per year), many will prefer to get their news from their devices as these devices have now incorporated TV and newspapers into one through convergence. However, I think a small hope may be seen in the promoting of newspapers much like The New York times, which direct their newspapers at a specific audience but also represent their newspapers as something of a luxury could be the way for other newspapers to go. If people are able to see that the newspapers is something to read, something exclusive then newspapers can bet on putting a price on them. 

NDM 8

SKY TO STOP BROADCASTING FOX NEWS IN UK AFTER 15 YEARS- THE Independant




The article mentions the length of FOX News 's broadcasting in the UK, but, calling the news broadcast " Rupert Murdoch's right-wing US channel" and how SKY will stop broadcasting the channel after 15 years.  While the article makes it clear it is not due to the controversy of Fox but not seeing any financial commercial gain from FOX News.

• His US media group, 21st Century Fox, announced it would withdrawn the controversial news channel from Sky packages on Tuesday but insisted that the decision has nothing to do with a potential investigation into the firm's bid to takeover the remaining shares of Sky plc – Sky's parent company.

• “Fox News is focuse d on the US market and designed for a US audience and, accordingly, it averages only a few thousand viewers across the day in the UK. We have concluded that it is not in our commercial interest to continue providing Fox News in the UK.”

Ofcome the broadcasters' regulator, made a series of rulings against the channel. The article states unlike newspapers, boradcatsers are expected to maintain strict impartiality and would be made to pay a fine if they knowingly "disseminate misleading information" which is the Ofcome code.  Now, Fox had broken these regulations 22 times in the past 10 years and the channel Fox News has led it's parent company in hot waters as seven of those breaches were done by the news channel. 

For me, many people have stated and made their discomfort their dislike towards the  channel of Fox News and even tried a boycott of the channel. But what we fail to realise is that there are higher powers which make up these channels. 21st Century Fox owns Fox News and controls 39% of Sky stated in the article. This just shows those powers of institutions. Many would want Boycott Pepsi and not give in any money to them after their tragic ad with Kendle Jenner, but some fail to realise that PepsiCo owns many other companies Tropicana, Quaker or Frito-Lays' and the most grossing brand name Starbucks, and those who would want to stop drinking Pepsi may be still giving money to these other comapanes. So if those who like the idea of not having Fox news broadcaster would still be giving money back to 21st Century Fox by still using Sky or even watch their movies.

So, we can see it would be hard for audiences to dislike specific products or companies as many larger institutions own them and other companies which would have products used by these audiences. Institutions I think can be seen in this article to have a lot of power in terms of what they can take away and give back to them. Just because Fox news wont be airing doesn't mean they lose revenue. 

NDM 7

Trump digital director says Facebook helped win the White House- The Guardian
























Brad Parscale, the digital director, said that the use of Facebook impacted the US election which led to Trump's win. Also, digital campaign advertising and micro-targeting of voters isn't new as sites such as Facebook allowed targeted election advertising as a business strategy, rather than representing their own political views.

• “Twitter is how [Trump] talked to the people, Facebook was going to be how he won,”“wanted people who supported Donald Trump” -Brad Parscale
• “Campaigns aren’t able to hand-pick Facebook team members to work on their projects,”   “had to be partisan and he questioned them to make sure”.  -the reported by CBS on the Facebook employees that served as “embeds” in his office
• “While Facebook teams offer insight into how our products work, campaigns make their own strategic decisions about how to use the Facebook platform.”
• “Twitter is how [Trump] talked to the people, Facebook was going to be how he won,” - Parscale
• Excerpts of the interview did not make clear if Parscale offered any data to back up his suggestion that Facebook ads targeting 15 people at a time were “how Trump won”.

There is a very (very) high dislike of the current president of the US and in a time where Facebook has been seen to be using Russian propaganda. The article suggests Facebook was at the forefront of the digital advertising of Trump's election campaign. Facebook provided Trump 2016 with employees placed into the the campaign's digital office and helped to were there to show 'educate' staff on how to utilise Facebook ads was wha Parscale stated because  “wanted people who supported Donald Trump” as the Face book employees were questioned on their political views.

Facebook's addressed the comment made by Parscale: “Twitter is how [Trump] talked to the people, Facebook was going to be how he won,” Facebook stated that they gave multiple companies support and not just for Trumps promotions .

The comment shows how actively Facebook pursued election advertising as a business strategy, even as its platform has come under attack for Russian-backed political propaganda, Facebook's election advertising allows campaigns to take lists of registered voters taken from public records and find those people on Facebook.

Experts in digital advertising have made cautions that when talking to media, campaign strategists often over-hype the sophistication of "micro-targeting" and similar digital efforts.

I think, the article highlights how much power audiences think social media has on themselves. We know of targeted ads but such things of Trumps digital office having access of public records, represents this power. Also, we can infer that there is power in advertisements on sites such as Facebook, even if Trump was able to show his biased opinions on Twitter, the ability for his campaign to be able to be taught how to target voters really shows how even the political views of these institutions will target audiences. 

Economist on the future of newspaper

The article talks of factors which would have an impact on the "death" of print, such as a lack of revenue towards advertising, the change towards digitised media for news and future predictions to where the news industry will be in a few yeas. Also, the advantage of the digital age for news and the change that it will bring which is debated, in the article, as positives and negatives. 


1) Do you agree with its view that it is ‘a cause for concern, but not for panic’?

For me, I do agree with the statement to an extent,that it is 'a cause for concern' as there is still the chance for news corps. and different types of news. News-aggregations like Google News brings different sources and news sites together from all around which the sources themselves can benefit from. Though this can deprave news sites as they will end up preferring Google News as a platform rather than the news sites themselves. 
Newspapers such as the UK's the Guardian has now been able to gain half as many reader in the US showing how newspapers are able to gain a worldwide audience. 
Citizen journalism, though become something of a social good has it's own disadvantages with it showing unreliable news and bias. However, the concern of the changing of news due to digital media is to be worried about due to decline in advertising revenue for these newspapers, more people reading news from the internet leading to a diminishing amount of people reading print thus a loss of jobs and decline in gatekeeping (professional and reliable journalists). 

2) The article is 10 years old - an eternity in digital media terms. Have the writer's predictions come to pass? Use statistics from your Ofcom research to support or challenge the writer's argument.

In my opinion, the predictions are likely to come to pass as the decline of the industry is still continuing now. This can be seen with the use of newspapers . Newspapers are used by 29% of people (2016), not a significant decrease in 2015 where just 31% of people used newspapers to access news, which represents a decrease of nine percentage points since 2014 and 2013 (when 40% of UK adults said they used newspapers for news).  However, this could be argued that it is due to the preferences of the readers in terms of demographics etc. Statistics show that reach of national newspapers varies by age group: 29.3% of 16-24s are print newspaper readers, compared to 67.9% of over-65. Ultimately there is no denial on the other hand that newspapers are in decline and this form of media is dying out, and there is truth in the writers predictions. 

3) The Economist suggests that high-quality journalism in the future will be backed by non-profit organisations rather than profit-seeking media corporations. Is there any evidence for this? How is the Guardian funded? What do major stories from the last year such as the Panama Papers suggest about how investigative journalism is conducted in the digital age?

It could be the case that non-profit organisations will back high-quality journalism in future since the costs associated it as it is are too high for profit to be a concern. Employing journalists who actually undergo fieldwork spending months conducting research on certain investigations is too expensive, and perhaps having a combination of independent and citizen journalists is a lot more viable. The fact that the economist suggests that high-quality journalism in the future could be backed by non-profit organisations is true, with a prime example being The Guardian, which is funded by the public. "Good" journalism has come at a cost, now much of the news is now online meaning newspapers have to now invest more money into their news and what sought of platform they put it on. Many newspapers are being impacted, problems like a lack of advertising revenue  so there is no surprise that websites such as The Guardian ask users to subscribe to pay monthly fees to keep it going.   Stories like Panama Papers show that investigative journalism in digital age now need information released on the internet, opposed to information from inside jobs done by the organisations themselves. This can be seen as  Panama Papers revelations were because of 11.5 million files leaking from a specific database onto the internet, reinforcing how newspapers must lookout on the internet as well as their more conventional way of finding things out.

Build The Wall- Analysis

The article, Build The Wall, is available here on the Columbia Journalism Review website.


1) Summarise each section in one sentence

• Section 1: This section states that news should be paid through subscriptions to keep the industry stable
• Section 2: Evaluates the pro's/con's of establishing a paywall through using examples, and the risks establishing a paywall may carry and the impact of revenues on the industry
• Section 3: The change in news and revenue since 1995, evaluates statistics. 
• Section 4: Discusses the different scenarios that may take place if newspapers establish the paywall and the impact each scenario will have on revenue etc. 

2) Summarise David Simon’s overall argument in 250 words.

David Simon's argument is that paywall's are necessary to keep newspapers going and the industry stable. Simon states in the article that if newspapers are going to establish a paywall on their online site, all other newspapers would need to do the same to keep the industry going, as readers will ultimately prefer to read the free version of news rather than the paid version. He states how online subscriptions are a bad idea. Also, he states how there is a "mix of journalism" that justifies a subscription fee. 
To add,  that content matters and they would have to find a way to make people pay for the content, which can only be done by professional journalism. "If you do not find a way to make people pay for your product, then you are--if you choose to remain in this like of work--delusional". 

The industry has already mad the world wide web a place for an " advertising opportunity" for their actual products. Readers rightly identify the immediate “digitized version” of newspapers as superior due to the advances in new and digital media. The internet content is free and this allows citizen journalism to be dominant in how audiences receive their news. 



3)

The article suggests that the success of the NYT paywall was due to the fact there was a "commitment to quality journalism" with quality and in-depth reporting, in an age where certain things that should be kept quiet can also go viral in seconds. For me, the difference between US(i.e New York) and non US consumption , is suggested that places where people buy physical copies of newspapers is due to the fact it is advertised as a quality media more than in no-US countries. 
However, the article states the NYT as a global news source is very high which helped grow it's subscriber count grow and not as many people are buying as many print news versions in the US than those from non-US countries- " As much as 13 per cent of digital subscriber growth arrives from outside the U.S. ", the number of people accessing the NYT news is reaching 100,000. 
The article brings to question the dilemma of NYT continuing to keep these suscription numbers high and growing. NYT's generating income comes up to $200m a year in their subscriptions . Also, that the problem, is if the revenue of print is on a contious downfall and the advertising of ads wavers it becomes a "huge challenge" in generating income. .


4)  

The article discusses the strength of, though small number of audiences,  can still have a continuous base of people to direct their news towards and the article suggests that this is very appealing to advertisers- "they are a valuable audience to advertisers". However, the counter argument made by the article is that teh arrival of paywalls from a buyers perspective is that the pageviews would go down. This means because of the price set for subscriptions many people may be put off to pay the prices for the news they could get from other sites. Also, that the "uniques" of the news would be hard to come by, as people would only pay for news if it is 'quality . If the news that audiences are paying for is easily accessible from other sources it decreases the 'uniqueness' of said news and the amount if revenue institutions can make from news and advertisements will also decreases. 


5) 

The article talks about the effects and positive/negative aspects of new/digital media on the newspaper industry.. Varying opinions and debates are brought up and created, the vast amount of information is available thus making the world "porous to information" , Grayling states that institutions nervous of this ability will start to police the internet to find this information. Also, negatives that were brought up were that there was "volume rubbish" online and the weak presense of news on othrt countries i.e USA. All round the article brings to light a view on how we have to allow the chages new and digital media has brought and accept us. 

6) 

For me, news should be a right for everyone around the world, society needs to allow people to know what is happening around them, some in the world aren't entitled to get news as they are unable to afford it or aren't allowed to view certain things. There should be something that is able to actually support newspapers, as they are on the decline, and some newspapers which are on the high=end spectrum should be allowed to use paywalls for their news. 
The journalist is being affected due to the lack of revenue going towards their work which would effect their work ,ultimately, good journalism.  However, paywalls have been shown to be quite unsuccessful such as with 'The Sun', while for me if I am able to gain news from an unbiased and free news(BBC; free and unbiased) I would be more likely if it is like that of news from a source which would want me to pay for. 

NDM 6

Facebook and Google promote politicized fake news about Las Vegas shooter- The Guardian

Facebook and Google have been found to have created false information of the Las Vegas shooter who killed more than 50 people as a anti-Trump liberal. This false information was spread across the internet like wildfire just moments after the shooting took place. The ability for this much 'False news' to spread across the internet showed showed just how bad the problem with the increase in viral online propaganda when mass shooting in the US happen. 

An example made by the article was the false identification of the mass shooter of the tragedy as 'Geary Danley'.  The anonymous message board 4chan, whcih is know as a  'alt-right' platform had many stating Danley was a registered Democrat. Then a 'consiprocy-laden blog' named Gateway Pandit, published an evdience free article named  

• “Las Vegas Shooter Reportedly a Democrat Who Liked Rachel Maddow, MoveOn.org and Associated with Anti-Trump Army”. 
•  The piece was based on a review of Facebook “likes”.

Tought the claims were both false as they came from non-credible sources, Facebook's 'Saftey Check' page (used to help people get to those during crisis) shortly ended up promoting a story stating the shooter had 'Trump-hating' view "along with links to a number of other hoaxes and scams, according to screenshots." 

Google users who searched for the falsely named shooter 'Geary Danley' at a certain point re-directed to the 4chan thread with multiple false claims. 

Celebrities were also found to post false information. Singer Sia tweeted 20 people were dead when there wasn't a certified police statement made and also added that there were "multiple shooters". The Police found there only to be one shooter. 

• “It’s getting more polarized. There’s this mad scramble to paint the guy as a Democrat or a Republican, so they can cheer,A lot of this is pushed by trolls deliberately to muddy the conversation.”  - (Interview) Brooke Binkowski, managing editor of fact-checking website Snopes.com

• A YouTube user also pushed an unsubstantiated rumor that the suspect was a Hillary Clinton supporter.
• Some conservatives on Twitter have theorized that left wing social media users have attempted to falsely paint Paddock as a right wing individual. Some have speculated that liberals are posing as white nationalists and Trump supporters and following a Twitter account that has the same name as the suspect, in hopes of proving he is a conservative.

This truly shows the problem of anonymity on the internet, but also the problem of companies such a Facebook and Google being easily led to even promote and lead searches to sites of false information.

Google, Twitter and Facebook have actually been accused for allowing propaganda and 'Fake News' to be spread and reach larger audiences on the web. This ability for propaganda sites such as 4chan to manipulate information to be spread and even falsely name the shooter shows how much power a small message board can have on larger audiences, even institutions- 'trusted' such as Google, to even allow search to reach those who search it.  

Twitter was able to downplay their role of the promoting of the false information- “Our Global Security Operations Centre spotted these posts this morning and we have removed them. However, their removal was delayed, allowing them to be screen captured and circulated online", showing that they were unable to state their own wrong in the situation, if they found the problem they still should not have allowed it to spread. While, Google made a statement to "make algorithmic improvements to prevent this from happening in the future”. 

For me, I think that the situation of false news sparking wide to large audiences won't cease, as long as sites such as 4-chan or dark-web boards are able to continue. Sites like Twitter have been known to have fake account following Trump or to have fake account created made to prove certain ideologies. This shows the power of audiences to make and prove their own point in undefeated, in terms of their Institutions. If  many of the websites state it is because of unseen algorithms it is the fault of theirs and there inability to change the spread of 'False News' 

NDM 5

Toys R Us is banking on futuristic tech to save its business after bankruptcy- Business Insider UK

Toys R Us has been in headlines on their latest bankruptcy. The CEO of Toys R Us has stated the store would be looking into the more interactive and technological side of entertainment for their young demographic.There shall be a playroom for the children to interact with the toys and games which they want to implement all over their stores. The store will be focusing more on their AR experiences- a  virtual reality, to give an all round interactive experience.Such things as making an app for customers to use, be able to navigate through stores via apps, feed babies through animating toys in the stores and even having games, such as, for the audience to collect 'stars' in stores to gain something free or of the like in the store. The AR experiences is available now in 23 stores and would be expected to become more prevalent nationwide from October 31st. 

• "It's going to transform the experience of coming into a Toys R Us bricks and mortar store and turn it into something that's quite different and a lot more fun,'' - CEO Dave Brandon

• "While a large reason behind the specialty toy chain's decision to file for bankruptcy in September was the $5 billion in debt it owes as a result of a leveraged buyout in 2005, the chain's problems run deeper than that".- Article  

I think the reason the toy company was having problems money wise was due to the large consumption of technological/ virtual toys and games. Many young children aren't inot physical toys and much prefer the experiemce of controllers for PS4 or XBOXs, many as young as 4 being able to use iPads skillfully. The mass consumption and growth of technology as a whole has led to man companies having to follow this an trying to implement it into their branches. 

The growth of New/Digital media have left a store which dealt with many a physical toys and games to be put into bankruptcy due to many children not wanting to ride bikes or play with racing karts and Barbies. I think this would be inevetable for a store such as Toys R Us due to their main demographic being children and 12+ and them mainly selling physical toys and not focusing on other sides of children growing's interests.