My Responce to Journalism and Freedom....according to Rupert Murdoch

In response to the article posted in the Wall Street Journal by Rupert Murdoch titled: Journalism and Freedom, I’d have to disagree entirely with his main concept.

Murdoch’s article is about disagreeing with common views that find many news enterprises are shutting down or scaling back due to the digital era, and believes that it will only prosper.

Stating a good fact he explains that the journalism world is solely founded on the trust that the reporters and news organizations relay to inform us on the truth of what’s really going on in the world. However, his idea goes on to explain that the news agencies will greatly benefit from this, and that technology should not be blamed for those who could not succeed with this route.

He discusses the issue of trust in journalism…and for me I trust more of what I see in print than what I do online. Not to go bashing on the internet here, but it’s more often you’ll find websites out there with false fabricated information. For example, Wikipedia is famous for the amount of research information it provides, however it’s not 100% reliable when you can go in and edit the websites and information. Not only that but with the number of computer hackers out there…if to go along with this “new business model” Murdoch proposes…who’s to say people won’t want to try and find a way around his method of profiting for news on the web?

Another point he discusses – that “ Today news consumers do not want to be chained to a box in their homes or offices to get their favorite news and entertainment – and our plan includes the needs of the next wave of TV viewing by going mobile.” As convenient as that would be for personal use, older generations are not always going to want to have just rely on their cell phones and blackberries to hear the news.

Especially those of elderly people…small screens with text might be fine for us younger generations, but it won’t be like that forever.
Going back to this “new business model” I agree with the critics who believe that people won’t pay for internet news sites. Why should people have to pay to read the news online when it costs them 50 cents at a gas station or when they could just they listen to the news on the radio for free?

Now, as for the freedom for point he discusses...this confused me a bit as to how the founding fathers relate to truth in new forms of journalism. If the idea is to promote that the Internet will not be the end of reliable and trustworthy journalism, wouldn’t the writers and publishers be the real concern of our problems?

As Murdoch points out that a lot of times many news organizations tend to just play follow the leader and rewrite another version of the same story rather than just attributing it to the credible source. …and with this point I do agree, but not only does this happen with internet news, but in every media outlet – radio, TV.

Not that I don't believe that technology will make an even more bigger impact on news organizations in the future..but if we can’t always attribute credible news in those outlets, why would it be better for us to then solely only rely on Internet journalism?