back to article Murdoch tells old media to 'stand up' to Google, Bing

News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch has once again hit out at search engines, and called on newspaper publishers to stop the likes of Google and Microsoft’s Bing from freely displaying articles online. Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington yesterday, Murdoch reiterated his disgust at how search engines handle news and …

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  1. hammarbtyp
    FAIL

    Lets me paraphrase this

    "Murdoch tells old media to 'stand up' to Google, Bing"

    If the rest of you don't do it I am going to look out of touch and pretty stupid. So to help my profit margins, can you please attempt to cut your own throats at the same time as me.

    Also I think when we talk about Murdoch's rivers of gold, maybe golden stream is a better metaphor.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "If the rest of you don't do it"

      Then people will read your news instead of my shit, and since my news reports on things in a way that protects my financial interests (notice how i don't report on china much any more) it could have a knock-on effect.

    2. moonface

      Silence is golden.

      I suppose a Murdoch golden stream is preferable to an old Maxwell golden shower!

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/jul/17/pressandpublishing.city

      Looking forward to yet another media tycoon being added to the list, of being tripped up by hubris and a sense of his own invulnerablity?

  2. Jimmy Floyd
    Megaphone

    Hipocritical as ever, Rueport [sic]

    "...the newspapers ought to stand up and let them do their own reporting.”

    Is that in the way that many Murdoch titles already do, by taking stock reportage from Reuters? Yes, they pay for it - but it smacks of hypocrisy when the Dirty Digger uses a financial argument to justify his usual absence of quality.

  3. Shady
    Stop

    I suppose...

    ...it'll be up to the little people to stand up to Murdoch then.

  4. Marcus Aurelius
    FAIL

    Charge of the Light Brigade

    Except no one is following him into the valley

  5. blackworx

    Hmmm

    Shame it's Rupert Murdoch doing the asking and not someone with, you know, a soul.

  6. Campbeltonian

    Obvious

    It seems that Murdoch is attempting to address the obvious issue with his paywall strategy - that his sites are going to lose out on a lot of readership to the sites that remain free.

  7. Ben Tasker
    Stop

    Robots.txt

    The article said they made changes to the protocol.

    Do you mean that they updated their robots.txt file, or do you mean they actually had something new added to the robots.txt protocols?

    Pedantic, inquiring minds want to know

  8. Eden
    WTF?

    Let me get this straight...

    Murdoch essenially wants to remove himself from a massive part of the web so the only way to his *sic* newspappers is to browse direct and pay for them instead of using the far better quality free alternatives.........

    Want some help mate?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What about blogs?

    Here in Bristol, with all the local printed news outlets being daily mail subsidiaries, the main news outlets for some time are in fact local blogs and web only sites, like bristol 24-7 and the bristol blogger.

    These sites could go pay only, but as they have business models that appear to work in the online world, there is no obvious need. How will the regional daily mail spinoffs manage to charge for their news in a world in which quality news is available for free?

  10. detritus

    Typo or Sardony?

    "Recently News Corp has been mulling blocking Google from displaying its news, but no such action has been taken against the media giant yet."

  11. Simon Grierson
    Jobs Horns

    Old media vs New

    Murdoch is trying to stem the flow of free news so his strategy will pay off.

    However, given the huge number of newspapers and news sites across the globe, Twitter, Facebook, etc, it wont be long before his strategy fails.

    Given the dredging of newsgroup posts for free news stories, perhaps we should charge him for access?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cry-baby.

    Once again when things don't go Murdoch's way he starts to cry like a little baby. Grow a spine or fuck off Rupert.

  13. The Guv
    WTF?

    Candidate for Hypocrite of the Year 2010

    Wow.... he's asking for everyone to work together and stand up for what is right....

    But when it comes to people standing up to Sky TV company his son/hired guns/press machines "squeel like a spoiled child"

    I don't get it Rupert... do you want fairness or profit in every avenue of life?

    Oh... it's obvious now silly question. ;-)

  14. yossarianuk

    The Murdoch bloc

    Hopefully the Murdoch empire will be safely tucked away behind some iron curtain (or pay wall) where there poisonous opinions can do much less harm.

  15. Craigness
    Stop

    There is a right price

    £1/day is too much for online. Murdoch thinks the web version should retail for the same as the online version, indicating that he thinks online consumer behaviour is the same as real world consumer behaviour and that the economies of scale from the internet should not be shared with his customers. He's not the only one though - books, songs and films all cost as much online as offline. Isn't the productivity gain from technology supposed to be where the little guy gets his "trickle down effect"?

  16. Oz
    Joke

    Simpsons-esque

    As Comic Book Guy so eloquently put it, "Farewell dinosaur!"

  17. David Hancock

    In the same way that...

    ...the printers "stood up" to Murdoch in 1986?

  18. Rod MacLean
    FAIL

    "Pay wall"

    "“Most newspapers in this country are going to have to put a pay wall up,” he said."

    Yeah because they need to compete with free sites like the BBC news .... oh, wait.

  19. Yves Kurisaki

    I think it's quite interesting..

    ..interesting to see a giant slowly killing itself.

    I may get some popcorn at some point.

  20. Hagglefoot
    Big Brother

    I only want to do it my way

    Given the level of content, normally someone like Cowell and buddies lauding how they made millions out of suckers and idiots, closly followed by the brainless football monatary sink hole. paywall might be a saviour to humanity and people will go read real news instead of the tripe they put out. Lets face it 9 times out of 10 subject and details provided by the AFP (note it always seems to read in very very small print curteousy of the AFP or others) and to quote an old saying curteousy never cost you anything. So what the papers are charging for is the Headline. So if Murdoch plans on giving the headline away perhaps you can aggregate the headline from one to the AFP articles or others and hey presto publish your own paper. Just dont forget to be curteous. Perhaps its time to move on and realise we are all contributors to the human race and news and information is just one of many free contributions. Or perhaps, just maybe you want to own it, restrict it, only make it yours and no other opinion counts and for that opinion you should be suppressed into only hearing what you want to say through your medium, your paywall, your firewall, your news. In which case bring back the boys from Afganistan because the Taliban is on fleet street.

  21. zenith

    hahaha

    Who cares?

    This is totally going to stitch themselves up, big time. I hope they all put up their paywalls at the same time - that means that a total FAIL will occur with all their newspapers simultaneously. If they do one newspaper at a time, they'll see it for a total failure, and stop - which would be a shame...

    Maybe I should write a letter, suggesting that if only one paper does it, all the punters will quick match to their remaining free titles... and that the only solution is to do all of them at once.

    I'd love to see that arrogant, ignorant b@st@rd go out of business!

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Robots <META> tag

    Despite the face that every part of Newcorp's web presence can be left out of Google, Bing, etc by them simply using the Robots meta tag, notice Murdock does not use it?

    1. Oninoshiko
      FAIL

      Open mouth, insert foot.

      Why would you use a meta tag? If you use the meta tag tthe bot has already copied the page (violated his copyright). They should, and are useing robots.txt. For example, take a look at http://www.sky.com/robots.txt Not being a vistor of sky.com, I couldn't tell you how through this is.

      they are much more conservitive about their robots.txt in the US. http://www.foxnews.com/robots.txt

      The do need to update the US ones (for sure), but they are probibly waiting 'till they can get some other "old media" on board in the US.

  23. Greg J Preece
    FAIL

    Subscriptions below expected numbers?

    I take it not many people subscribed to your crappy news sites then, eh Rupert? Bwhahahaha.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The dinosaurs....

    ....of the press and media industries just don't see that asteroid heading their way, do they? Or perhaps they just think if they ignore it long enough...

  25. Gilbert Wham

    I can't help but think...

    ...that because it's Murdoch, he's doing this as some sort of awful plan we have yet to see the whole of; possibly to break the Internet or royally shaft the BBC. But then I think 'Maybe he's just gone completely fucking mad, instead of just evil mad'. And I feel better about the world.

    1. Owen Carter

      @Gilbert

      ".. he's doing this as some sort of awful plan we have yet to see the whole of; possibly to break the Internet or royally shaft the BBC."

      I think it's called giving David Cameron a rim-job. I have a sneaky suspicion that there is a gentlemens agreement that the tories will move the BBC to IP blocking everything but the UK for ALL online content. With maybe a paywall for the rest of us (note: I'm an expat who -would- pay for this -right now- if I got iPlayer access..)

      Coupled with a fantasy that the WIPO deal (where he had influence, even if us little people did not) would setup a worldwide 'presumed infringing' censorship scheme where money is your only way to get content online, it's easy to see where a 'money and influence can buy anything' fantasist can fail to understand what is really happening.

      This is turning into the most amusing train-wreck I have ever seen.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The technology exists, The content exists

    But the people who are willing to pay for the same story churned out time and again don't exist.

    If Murdoch Paper A is £1 per week online but Local Rag Site A is free and has the same main stories who are you going to use as your online source? That's right...Google, as there will ALWAYS be a free news source from somewhere no matter who tries to stop it. Hell if Google couldn't get the content from a source (like, say, hi res street imagary of the entire world) they'd just go out and get it themselves.

  27. bluest.one

    Exodus

    If the internet and it's newfangled ways of sharing and linking are too much of a bother to the Dirty Digger, he could always take his newspapers off the internet entirely. Nothing says he HAS to have an online presence.

    At least that way, he can live happily in the past and pretend that the world is still one where he can maintain dominance over the news media.

  28. Scott 19

    Fingers crossed

    This could be the end of tabloids and the start of some sort of News product rather than the celebrity drivel thats peddled now-a-days. Who knows some sort of web site devoted to reporting news on-line aimed at specific groups of like minded people (i use that term loosely) could become in fashion.

  29. Eddy Ito
    Pirate

    Business model? We've heard of it.

    Is it me or does Murdoch sound a bit like RIAA? Perhaps they could get their respective heads out of their collective arses and realize that the internet is one case where convenience to the consumer doesn't equate to a higher price. That is partly because the convenience to the producer is far greater and cuts out more middlemen... rather it would be if they could solve their cranio-rectal disease.

    Oh, I see, they _are_ the middlemen. Perhaps a man in the middle attack would be appropriate.

  30. ArghZombies
    Big Brother

    If he doesn't like the current system

    Why doesn't he form his own political party and then get voted into power by getting his papers to support only his views. From there he could outlaw free news companies and reap the rewards there!

    I think someone has set a precedent for this idea somewhere already, no?

    1. Rattus Rattus

      re: "form his own political party"

      He has. They're called the Republicans.

  31. Quxy
    Thumb Up

    TV too, please?

    You rock, Rupert! But you need to be proactive about this: put all the NewsCorp media behind a paywall NOW -- that'll show up those other wishy-washy media companies. Just one thing: can you PLEASE expand your paywall idea to include Fox? Pretty please? The free world will thank you.

  32. John G Imrie

    Well he has several options

    One don't put the stories on line

    Two Set up an RSS feed ant let Google use that to index the site

    Thee, Oh hell why am I doing his techies job for free.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Oh dear

    If your not going to protect your own content. Dont whinge about it

    Google, Bing etc are nice. And follow robots.txt files. If you tell them not to index your news stories. Or you issue a shorter version to their useragents you wont have this problem.

    So don't go "standing up" to them. it makes you look stupid.

  34. Statler

    Works both ways

    If he only makes headlines and a sentance available to Google/Bing then why should Google/Bing waste time sending traffic to his websites? I'd be pretty certain that a good percentage of traffic will be as a result of a search on Google/Bing. It'll hurt him more if they blocked him.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Which is why he hasn't blocked it.

      He may be an idiot, but he is still a businessman.

      He knows he can block it, but chooses not to... Hmm wonder why???

      It is all about publicity. If he just SFTU and did what he threatened then he would get no publicity from it.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

    "... those words are being taken mostly from the newspapers ..."

    Which are entirely original and never recycle the same story over and over again.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    tell Murdoch to use a robots.txt file ..

    > News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch has once again hit out at search engines, and called on newspaper publishers to stop the likes of Google and Microsoft’s Bing from freely displaying articles online.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_exclusion_standard

  37. John Savard

    Save The Trees?

    If people read the news for free on the Internet, they won't sell many newspapers. And it's harder to put ads on a web site than in a paper newspaper. So maybe the other newspapers will follow his example if they can't find a business model either. It would be nice if newspapers had a business model that didn't require paper... but if one can't be found, what can one expect?

    It may even happen someday that Google will shut down because so many people search for free, and not enough do anything that makes any money for Google. (Although Microsoft might want to buy their search technology.)

  38. Leo Maxwell
    FAIL

    Of course, it's HIS news

    Despite the amount of news that is sourced from twitter et al, not to mention blogs and even facebook.

    Read it on their site 2 or 3 days after everyone else has reported it and moved on.....

  39. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    A web2.0 opportunity

    What people don't understand is that newspapers provide a vital editorial service by deciding which news to report and which to ignore.

    What is needed is a way to duplicate this process in Google/Bing /etc:

    I propose a system where you select which shares you own and it doesn't show you any news which is harmful to the value of those shares. By simply selecting newscorp (MWS) you will automatically receive the same reporting as you would from reading the Times.

  40. gimbal
    Thumb Down

    Grabbity

    Once again, grabbity rears its hungry visage to the internet information community - but who reads those rags, anyways, seriously? All the news fit to try to sell you on the manufactured significance of? No thanks!

  41. Adrian Esdaile
    Flame

    What if...

    ...I happen to read one of His Almighty Ugliness' rags that has been left on the train? Assuming I survive the crippling brain damage, I have read it BUT HAVEN'T PAID!

    Come get me, Rupert! Come get me!

    It's nice to know that unless failtards like Rupert adapt to change, they will be replaced by an entirely new set of evil media moguls in less than 5 years.

  42. Steve Roper
    Flame

    Do you know what else the fucker said?

    In dismissing concerns that readers would go to other news sites Murdoch said:

    "I think when they've got nowhere else to go they'll start paying."

    FUCK YOU MURDOCH you arrogant fucking pig. You know what? I'd rather get my news from bloggers and nowhere else if that's going to be your fucking attitude. Now I won't ever pay for your online propaganda bullshit on principle. Hopefully some crack will hack past his paywalls and plaster the news all over the torrent sites daily for no other reason than to spit in the pig's face.

    And not only that, in discussing how Google and Bing should display his news in their search results he also said:

    "We'll be very happy if they just publish our headline or a sentence or two and that's followed by a subscription form."

    So basically if this greedy grubbing bastard gets his way, the first five pages of search results on any news issue will display a headline and leader but link only to a "join now" form, effectively making search engines useless.

    Still - all the more incentive for me to complete my freesite-only search engine...

  43. Rattus Rattus
    Thumb Up

    Love it.

    As time goes on, Murdoch is becoming less and less relevant. This can only be a good thing for the world.

  44. Tim Almond
    FAIL

    Newspapers

    It strikes me that there's a huge amount of fat in these newspapers. The Guardian/Observer has 1600 employees. Considering that a lot of news arrives via PR now, what on earth are all these people doing?

    A lot of news is just "official record" now. You don't need journalists to report about Rooney getting injured. The club can just announce it on their site and let people pick it up. Number 10 can just make announcements on the website about policies. You don't need an expensive person to help spread that. A tiny number of people using blogs or twitter and it will soon get around.

    Some of it is just corporate press releases thinly disguised as scientific surveys. Then there's the commentators, who are generally are outclassed by the best of the political bloggers.

    I'm even sceptical about their role in investigative journalism now. The last time I can think that The Times broke a major news story was 2004 when it investigated Wakefield's claims over MMR.

    Murdoch thinks I'm going to pay for that? With everything else out there for free on the net? Not a prayer.

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Rupert Murdoch fossil of a bygone era

    I didnt know fossils could talk.

  46. James R Grinter

    Others can license newswire feeds too..

    in fact, don't Google already license some of the AP feeds, or is it Yahoo? Regardless, all you'll miss out on is the 'columnists' (which will be no great loss, for the most part), because sadly the newspapers (and the BBC, to be honest) all long since stopped most of their own coverage of news events.

  47. Rex Alfie Lee
    Joke

    Conversation by Rupert & his mates...

    Scene: The bowels of hell...

    Rupert: Hey guys, you media moguls you...

    Friends: (silence)

    Rupert: Hey guys, we gotta shut Google down...

    Friends: (silence)

    Rupert: Hey guys, you listening to me...

    Friends: (silence)

    Rupert suddenly realises he's alone. His friends, all 20 or so imaginaries, have deserted him & the reality is just too much to bear. He weeps for his persecution.

    Rupert: I'm alone. No-one cares. Nobody knows nor understands...

    A voice looms from the outer reaches of the forboding scene.

    Bill: I understand Rupert, Bill weeps

    SteveJ: I understand Rupert, SteveJ weeps

    SteveB: I understand Rupert, SteveB weeps

    Bill, Rupert & Steves: We understand each other. They weep some more...

    Rupert: I hate all of you. You disgust me

    Bill: That's the way I feel Rupert, especially about SteveB & SteveJ

    SteveB: What did I do?

    Bill: Destroyed Microsoft...monkey boy, idiot

    SteveB: but SteveJ & Google destroyed us Bill, it wasn't me...

    SteveJ: Shutup monkey boy. As for you Bill, doesn't matter how much you give away, no-one really cares for you anyway

    Bill: Go get a job Steve

    SteveJ: Oh, too funny Bill. Is that the best you can do?

    SteveB: (playing with himself in the corner) but I love you Bill, I loved you...(moan, groan, more weeping)

    Rupert: What about me?

    Bill & Steves: What about you? I hate you Rupert.

    Not another noise can be heard for an eternity. Suddenly a voice emanates from the dark recesses of hell.

    Big red horn'd fellow appears

    Satan: Phukwits!

  48. Naughtyhorse
    Coat

    <title> whatever </title>

    speaking as someone who hasn't bought a dead tree version of a newspaper since the early 90's I'd like to know just why the fuck would *anyone* pay for the online version of fleetstreets prurient, illiterate, inaccurate, recycled, racist, biased, libelous, small minded, defamatory, sensationalist, double standard-ridden, hipocritical, dishonest, xenophobic, hidden agenda-ised.....

    (okay describing the poor Dr Kelly as 'Tragic Boffin' after his murder by UK/US security types still appeals to my twisted sense of humour)

    but I tihnk you'll catch my drift.

    murdoch - fuck him and the dinosaur he rode in on

    mines the one with 'GOTCHA' written across the back

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