In light of the Guardian news iPhone application it seems appropriate for me now to discuss my ideas with how Journalism is changing in the 21^st Century. Perhaps more appropriately how we will see journalism change as we reach the end of a decade.

As John Stuart wrote in the second chapter of his essay ‘On Liberty’ it is necessary for journalists to have the right of free speech as long as there is not a breach of the Human Rights Act of 2000. As of yet there is no formal constitution in the UK to stop the right for free speech and the only possible opposable would have been the Government Press Prosecutions of 1858. Although many prosecutions were not carried out and were not done in the name of limiting free speech but instead focused on the liability of published articles.

It is undeniable in my view though that although the law will act as reinforcement against articles which may breach certain ethical guidelines it will ultimately be the power of individuals who will control the reactions towards published articles. We saw a few weeks ago that the Daily Mail journalist, Jan Moir, was ridiculed by the communities of social networks for her homophobic article concerning the late Stephen Gately. It was not the Daily Mail which became under attack by users but instead the journalist herself.

This suggests that journalists in the 21^st Century will be required to brand themselves as brands of their own specific type of journalism. The Guardian news iPhone application has highlighted this with the ability to favourite certain journalists and view their own content. In many ways this change could be likened to how authors have to act within the blogosphere. A blog is not only known for the subject it tackles but usually, especially in the case with smaller blogs, who the author is behind each post.

Rupert Murdoch has explained that the days of free news content on the internet are over as online(…)

It would be an understatement to say we are living in changing times, revolution has called and Rubert Murdoch blew the final whistle. Murdoch has said that there is a plan to release a News Corp e reader which will be in direct completion to Amazon’s Kindle. The Kindle e reader allows books, magazines and newspapers to be wirelessly downloaded directly to the device.

Downloading of newspapers, the digital subscriptions to newspaper, purchasing news content; these are all goals for the journalism industry. As I have shown before, the sales of newspapers have been dropping steadily every year. The cause of this problem is simple, ‘Why buy a newspaper when news is freely available online?’

Rupert Murdoch has called the end of free news content online. “The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites.”

All of his publications will need a subscription from next year to view content online. In some parts of the industry Murdoch has been met with criticism but most praise this move. We are living between two very different ages. One day (people my age) will be telling our kids of how, in the past, newspapers were printed on paper. You could access news content free online and how those good old days have now passed.

It is easy for us as consumers to scoff and announce our total rejection of Murdoch’s money making scheme. I have to admit that paying to read The Sun online brings uncontrollable shakes of disapproval to my body. However, will paying for journalism online become a necessity eventually? If The Sun had an exclusive celebrity story, which could only be read from The Sun, would you be prepared to pay subscription? Alternatively you could buy The Sun newspaper and read the story that way.

Murdoch’s scheme is money making but is also a method to heal the journalism industry. To give the industry a(…)

“The time, is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the ‘liberty of the press’ as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government.”

When John Stuart Mill wrote that in his essay On Liberty he was immediately contradicted by the introduction of the ‘Government Press Prosecutions 1858’. Mill stated at the time that he didn’t think he had been contradicted since prosecutions were rarely carried out and were not related to political disagreement but rather what is to be deemed immoral.

John Stuart Mill is certainly one of my favourite philosophers. An influence that always seems to be missed when counting opinion leaders from the 19^th Century. A self-confessed agnostic that published atheistic papers after his death in order to avoid controversy and public disagreement. An individual who could read Greek fluently at three years of age thanks to an experiment by his father, James Mill. Mill was briefly an MP at Westminster and was highly aware of society; particularly conformities of middle class life which Mill feared would remove the importance of liberty. Mill was certainly a lucid thinker who did not fear transitioning from one opinion to another and saw the virtue of intellect as the highest good, the summum bonum. However, he remained faithful to his father and remained a utilitarian for all his life.

This may indeed be the reason why Mill is commonly viewed as only a writer of utilitarianism. If truth is to be told his essay On Liberty caused the most controversy during his life. The liberty of the press really deals with the liberty of thought and discussion. Should thought and discussion be suppressed? Quite clearly we now live in an age where a whole manner of content can be found upon the internet devoid of any control or suppression.

It could be argued that modern social networking technologies are causing the press a bit of a nightmare. Twitter(…)

Ladies and gentlemen. As always thank you for downloading and listening to this podcast and indeed both past episodes as well. This episode comes with a bit of a twist. To honour the focus we are to make to content, free content, on the internet this podcast will be avaliable in the .ogg vorbis file format as well as the conventional .mp3 format. For those of you who are listening, rather than reading this podcast, a link has been provided on the blog to the .ogg vorbis website. A file format which is patent free but undoubtaly should be the future of audio.

For those of you who are regular visitors to the blog you may have noticed the design change. This will be coupled with new features such as the ability to track down all my social networking activity by selecting “Social Stream”. I have had very flattering feedback from a couple of people requesting that they receive email updates when new content has been uploaded to the website. Unfortunately I don’t really have enough time to do this personally (as much as I would love to). Over the next few weeks though an optional registration system will be put in place to give you this option. Of course, you can always subscribe to the podcast through iTunes.

An inky squirt

The topic of discussion we are to delve into today is really a cliché. It has been one of those questions which had always lurked around generation y like an inky dark cloud without any silver lining.

Is print dead?

Perhaps the profound question behind this concentration is simply asking a question about the future of content. Content which drives people to earn their money so that they in turn may use their money to purchase content. Print is really just a physical form of content which can be found on the internet. Of course it must be realised that the majority of the content which can be found on the internet doesn’t(…)