The Times and The Sunday Times will start charging for their websites from June. Readers will be offered a day's use for £1, or £2 for a week's subscription. Readers who have a seven-day subscription to the print editions will not be charged extra for access to the websites.

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One more feed to delete...

Rupert is, well, quite simply a Rupert.

Not only will the web-based access founder and sink, but the hard-copy subscriptions will fall off the wall.

Welcome to the New World Order, Rupert. I hope your financiers have a sene of humour.....

I would pay 20p for a single day if there was an exclusive, an important story, or some such special reason. I might - probably would not, but just might - pay a pound for a week's subscription. I would never dream of paying 1 pound to read on their website the news I can read elsewhere. Out of all the right-ish papers it is by far the worst organised website, with the fewest number of interesting stories. I have some sympathy with what Murdoch wants to do. It is dangerous that investigative journalism might disappear, but this isn't going to work. The WSJ has a market and a focus on Wall Street which brings it sales - who is going to pay extra for the Times?

"It is dangerous that investigative journalism might disappear"

Who broke Climategate - the MSM or blogs?

There's zero added value to cut'n'paste of press releases, with the wrapping of superficial opinionising, laughably labeled analysis. Plus, playing along with the deception that power still resides in Westminster prevents them contextualising real news. Equals dead in the water.

Good point ... and all the other "gates". Newspapers rarely do investigative journalism ... most of their "investigation" is simply investigating what the day's batch of press releases say.

Absobloodylutely!

Murdoch speaks about this here;

http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonkn ... JjYTQ4MzA=

I understand the rationale behind this move, but it will fail.

One of the problems is that newspapers think that they deliver quality. They argue that they do "stellar reporting", wondering who would do "all the investigative journalism" when they disappear. Which is utter nonsense. Journalists -with very few exceptions- have become lazy rewriters of PR messages, taking whatever comes their way and "reporting" it with little to no critical reflection at all. Even worse, some add their own PR spin to the news they are "reporting". So, Instead of doing their jobs, journalists have reduced themselves to be mere gatekeepers for a dying medium.

Only very few are willing to spend money for PR spin.

Today, the really independent information providing different views can be found in blogs and on non-MSM web sites.

Which is why this idea will fail.

Bizarrely, their new website opens with the words, "Quality journalism has never mattered as much as it does today". Either they are unaware of how low their standards of journalism have sunk - or they're taking the piss.

Pallywood, Qanagate, Climate Fraud - all exposed and investigated on the blogs especially here. Why should I pay money to the shysters who take feed from Press Association and Reuters? BTW, who owns those news agencies because their owner is the controller of mainstream news?

Of course Rupert will claim that you only find balanced reporting in the traditional media - blah, blah.

What all of these people fail to understand is the wisdom of crowds, and the interactive nature of news and comment that the web provides.

News and analysis on the web may, or may not, be good journalism - good sites get traffic, bad sites do not - good sites succeed, bad sites fail. That is natures way.

But real understanding on any story emerges, not so much due to the authors efforts, but in the in the comments section where you often get interesting analysis that the original author had not considered.

The interactive nature of news and opinion on the web is the gold of the new age. And I am so sorry, but letters to the Editor does not cut it.

It is pretty hard to hold an editorial position when your readers are typing BULLSHIT in capital letters.

It is interesting that, relative to our hit rate, we possibly have one of the lowest proportion of comments. I am not sure whether it is the forum format which puts off casual commenters, or perhaps there is some intangible. However, I regard myself as fortunate in having some extremely high quality and informative commemts, some of which have provided new leads and directions for the blog. And you are totally right about it being a corrective. I rely on the forum to tell me whne I've got things wrong or are going off the rails.

Ref: RAENORTH » Fri Mar 26, 2010 11:56 pm

" ... relative to our hit rate, we possibly have one of the lowest proportion of comments. I am not sure whether it is the forum format which puts off casual commenters, or perhaps there is some intangible."

I have visited EUrerendum for sometime now, even though I am not in the UK. It was only because of this post and how strongly I believe that the MSM have let us down, that I finally figured out how to comment. Perhaps it is due to the forum format - which is not intuitive, being on "another site". Or of course, it may just be that I am a thick antipodean.