Guardian's Robin Hood plan: Steal from everyone to give to us
The brother-in-law of the Guardian's editor - the paper's investigative reporter David Leigh - has floated an idea to save the newspaper industry. Every broadband subscriber in the country would pay a tax of £2 a month, whether they wanted to or not, with the money shared amongst news organisations according to how many UK …
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Or the Daily Wail for that matter
<cite>I wonder what the publisher of the Express has to say.</cite>
The Daily Mail also gets a lot of visits from folks mocking their OTT articles, so should they get their share of this subsidy?
Would The Times open up or relax their paywall if they got a slice of this cash?
It's a pity the Guardian has gone the way it has, for it provided much needed balance during the Tory government years. Yes, I did buy it nearly every day back then, but they lost the plot somewhere in the mid-nineties.
Re: Or the Daily Wail for that matter
"It's a pity the Guardian has gone the way it has, for it provided much needed balance during the Tory government years"
So without a Maggie, there can't be a Graun?
Does it work the other way? I'd put up with (nay, I'd subscribe to) the Graun if that meant we had a prime minister with some common sense, a good bit of spine, and a willingness to stick up for this country.
Jeez!!!! I don't know....
Someone put this guy out of his own self interested misery. That, or buy him a book on how 21st century business works, and a cloth with which to clean his face when his head eventually comes out of his arse.
Newspaper publishing, like religion - is an over saturated and dying industry - in fact I'd go so far as to say that newspapers such as these won't see out the next 10 years in their current format...
...and I certainly won't pay to save them.
Trowel, For The Laying Of
An AC said: "The Trust will bleed it's businesses dry before the Guardian is allowed to expire, or Alan Rusbridger's salary is allowed to drop below £500,000 a year (minus benefits and bonuses)."
The Guardian said: '"Alan Rusbridger emailed staff at the newspaper to say that his salary in the upcoming 2012-13 financial year will be £395,010, compared with £438,900 in the current financial year.
His annual pension contribution will be reduced to £75,000, and the total reduction in his salary and pension package will amount to 19% in the next year starting in April."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/09/guardian-editor-takes-pay-cut
Re: Trowel, For The Laying Of
".....his salary in the upcoming 2012-13 financial year will be £395,010..... His annual pension contribution will be reduced to £75,000....." Gosh, how will the poor luvvie survive on that!?!?! He'll barely be able to afford (foreign immigrant) minions to clean his ivory tower!
Joking aside, I would suggest the best move on the part of the Trust would be to reduce Mr Rushbridger's salary to the London average (about £33k) and then put him on a profits-based commission for the rest. That should focus Mr Rushbridger's mind quite nicely. The resulting bloodbath of immediate cuts may drive the Guardian under or revitalise it, I don't really care, but at least the Guardian would be finally producing some entertainment of note for the rest of us.
but.. we don't pay for El Reg, directly or via taxation.. however do they sustain themselves??
Don't pay for El Reg?
I could make an educated guess that some of El Reg's income is from advertising. The companies that advertise have to pay for that from their marketing budget. That budget is funded by you, the punter that reads the ads and buys the product.
You pay pay for all real news either directly or indirectly.
You can judge whether Andrew knows what he's talking about by the fact that he writes:
"l this can't go on forever. GMG shareholders (who include pension funds) are not sponsoring a charity designed to make their wealth disappear: shareholder action will force a change of direction sooner or later"
In fact, as is well-known, the Guardian has no shareholders at all. It is 100% owned by the non-profit Scott Trust .
There is some value in preserving professional journalists: they're paid to check their facts....
ahahahahahaha
Journalists checking facts? Have you *read* a newspaper in the last 10 years?
They all just reword press releases, and if that doesn't come out sensational enough, pull 'facts' out of their arse.
Unless you're talking about something like fullfact.org, who *are* paid to check facts but they're a blog so not journalists (according to the 'real' journalists).
"GMG shareholders (who include pension funds) "
"the Guardian has no shareholders at all. It is 100% owned by the non-profit Scott Trust"
Thank you Andrew and David for making it clear just how well informed your respective pieces are.
Isn't Facebook a non-profit company too these days? Is that the way to go for news? It seems to be the way ITV were heading last time I looked at their news...
" they're paid to check their facts"
like Johann Hari, you mean?
You're right...
... there is some value in preserving professional journalists.
But not via a hypothicated tax. The Guardian is a business - make money or die, it's that simple. You (i.e. the Guardian) deserve nothing you haven't earned.
Oh, and I'm a Guardian subscriber via the iOS app and have read (and paid for it) most days for the last 10 years. CHARGE ME MORE MONEY YOU IDIOTS
There is some value in preserving professional journalists: they're paid to check their facts
Because Graun hacks do not make many mistakes, do they?
And the Graun doesn't have probably the largest corrections and clarification section (p28-32) of all papers, does it ?
@DavidLeigh
"In fact, as is well-known, the Guardian has no shareholders at all."
Except, of course, the shareholder you then go on to name, which owns all the shares in the Guardian Media Group (owner of the Guardian and Observer, the latter of which seems to be under a constant death threat). So it does have shareholders, albeit just the one.
There is some value in sub-editors who check the inaccurate things professional journalists inadvertently type.
Re: There is some value in preserving professional journalists: they're paid to check their facts
"And the Graun doesn't have probably the largest corrections and clarification section (p28-32) of all papers, does it ?"
Perhaps it's because they bother to, instead of never apologising clarifying or otherwise admitting to getting it all wrong?
Re: There is some value in preserving professional journalists: they're paid to check their facts
"Perhaps it's because they bother to, instead of never apologising clarifying or otherwise admitting to getting it all wrong?"
The Graun buries their corrections deep in the newspaper. The Reg publishes its corrections at the end of the relevant article. Try again.
Re: There is some value in preserving professional journalists: they're paid to check their facts
"The Graun buries their corrections deep in the newspaper. The Reg publishes its corrections at the end of the relevant article. Try again."
The Reg isn't a *paper*, as referenced in what I was replying to.
Try again.
Newspapers add their £2 a month, BBC adds their £1 a month, Movie industry adds their £5 a month, council adds another £1 a month, before you know it you're paying £100 a month for stuff you tend not to want to people that you'd never give it too while you still need to pay for a subscription to the stuff you do want.
"BBC adds their £1 a month"
Ahem! The BBC get nearly 12 quid a month at present.
40p a day, isn't it?
I'd happily pay that for 6Music alone. Anything else is just a bonus.
"Ahem! The BBC get nearly 12 quid a month at present."
They can have it.
Worth every penny purely for Dr. Cox, Top Gear, Dr. Who and the F1.... except we only get half the F1 these days. *grumble*.
Anyway: It's still less than the 25+ quid Sky want just for the F1.
"40p a day, isn't it?"
Hmmm, well according to the Grauniad, it's only 6p per day to fund the media groups.
That seems like a bargain.
Why stop at news?
Why shouldn't all sites offering a free service get something? Google should be in for a nice little windfall.
Re: Why stop at news?
I propose a 1 pound ISP tax to pay for all the free porn on the internet.
The money will be distributed by some formula based on Brazilian funbags and 1/number of cups - determined by reg readers.
It's normal
I mean for example I have to pay for German commercial TV via advertisement money, even though I don't watch it. There's little difference between such a fee being collected via advertisements or via some sort of enforcement agency.
there ought to be two new requirements for becoming a teacher.
Intelligence and decency. It might work, it certainly hasn't been tried yet.
Re: there ought to be two new requirements for becoming a teacher.
"Intelligence and decency. It might work, it certainly hasn't been tried yet."
More to the point: They should be requirements to being a student. Because that doesn't happen very often in a lot of schools, either.
Nothing new under the sun
this is just the blank cassette levy, under a different guise. Although, with advancing years, I'm starting to think they were right: home taping *did* kill music.
Auto Trader
Didn't the trust recently sell off Auto Trader after having already got rid of the Manchester Evening News?
Bunch of no good commie beatniks!
I don't usually post until the anger subsides, but really...
" The Reg, then, will surely be in line for a buckshee £20m-odd every year under Mr Leigh's plan (strangely he doesn't mention us, it's almost as though some kind of print snobbery were still at work)."
I think the plan was for funding journalism, which rather rules this august organ out.
"the paper lost £54m last year - or £150,000 a day."
Well that's a good thing, because at least in a couple of years their business can shut down and stop pretending to contribute to society.
Why is the automatic response of the 'progressive liberals' to a financial shortfall always 'hey - let's take more taxes' ?
Like Shite mate!
Your not getting £2 out of me for print media. Just accept your industry is dead!
Only the fool hardy buy/read newspapers. Who pays to read someone elses bias opinions?
@Obviously
I can literally smell your fake Burberry from here.
This is serious
This is a serious problem. The quality of journalism has been declining for years, there's just no substitute to legwork and hours, both of which cost money. We need to find a way to fund journalism and on-line adverts aren't it!
I think a ~£24 a year 'tax' on broadband connections, to be distributed to UK based news organisations makes a lot of sense. At least as much sense as the Licence Fee. Just who is a bona fide news organisation is tricky though!
Re: This is serious
Absolutely. The dire state of local print journalism is also a serious matter that affects us all. If local rags disappear completely, as is very possible, then there will be no checks against local government corruption. Lots of tricky issues to resolve, but subsidising media is not necessarily a bad thing.
Re: This is serious
I do agree about the demise of proper journalism being a serious issue. I wonder whether a viable micropayment sceme where you'd conveniently pay a couple of cents / pennies /per article as you go would make a difference. (This was talked about in the 1990s if not earlier, still no such thing, apparently? Technically, at least, it shouldn't be that much of a problem ...).
Pie in the Sky
There's a fundamental problem here. As a matter of principle, all UK taxation goes into a common pot. If you introduce another tax, it is simply that, another tax. Which will then increase, and expand its revenue base, every budget. Since when was "Road Fund Tax" spent on funding roads? "National Insurance" is a second income tax. Income tax itself was introduced in 1799, at the rate of 0.8% as a temporary measure to fund the Napoleonic Wars. Etc, etc.
Re: This is serious
Wouldn't it be easier to simply give SKY a tax exemption?
If the idea is simply to transfer lots of money from the pockets of taxpayer to pockets of an australian media baron.
The Daily Mail just called...
...they are wondering why all their readers are commenting on the Register today.
Re: The Daily Mail just called...
If you'd been here longer than a couple of years you'd know the Graun isn't exactly held in a high regard on the reg, and for good reason.
At least on the reg we only have to put up with the occasional Orlowski or Paige nonsense opinion piece. The Grauniad seems to have them on every page. They don't even have the grace to label them for what they are most of the time; opinion pieces.
Re: The Daily Mail just called...
If you'd been here longer than a couple of years
I've "been here" since the last century and I'm still surprised by the amount of Daily Mail readers among the Register's downvoting community.
*sigh* have to agree with Orlowski again
Twice in one week? This is worrying.
or...
they could just charge £2 amonth for people who want to view the site.
pint because the answer is that easy.
Re: or...
Please don't trivialise the art of pouring a good pint.
If I had a pound for every time I'd got a pint of lager with no bubbles on top I'd be able to finance a newspaper.
Barmaids apparently don't find it funny when you ask them to give you head..
Re: or...
I was merely taking a breather and enjoying my pint for the hard work of my idea.
I would never trivialise the art of pouring a good pint.....
Cheers
tish
stupid idea asking for handouts to support them,
Why don't the guardian just scrap printing and publish via ebook and subscription to website ?
ebook can be read on the move and website for static use. not the same as a paper but heyho times are changing.
have some content free and some paid for but a daily ebook and subs to website might work.
I read The Guardian every day that I am online. And that must be about 350 days a year (for the past 7 years at least). It's basically one of the first set of websites I visit whenever I start my browser.
I would be more than happy to pay £2 a month to them. I have even told them this on their site. Twice. They claim that they set up a donation system before, and it cost more to run than they got in donations. They either need new staff who can run such a system for next to nothing, or they need to advertise it differently because I've never heard of it. Wonder if it got blocked?
Ahhhh.. .well there is the rub. Wonder if anyone can come up with a way to tell if someone is blocking ads on your site? Force those people to pay. I use Noscript and see no ads. I would not click any, nor buy anything. I would however be happy to pay to access sites, ad free, that enlighten my day (such as yours truly El Reg).
I do however strongly object to media outlets who want financing when they are not State companies. They have a business, they need to be successful. Most other businesses are streamlining and triming the fat to survive. Most print publications seem to be sticking their fingers in their ears and hoping everyone else will pay for the business to survive regardless of whether they provide a product that anyone wants. (The BBC is a hugely respected company throughout the world. That's another discussion entirely - they should charge the licence fee to anyone abroad who wants to pay it).
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