[idm]

I've been suspicious of Murdoch's motivations in the past (vis a vis the particular bias of Fox News) but this for-pay initiative seems like a testable proposition.

If Murdoch can decide, one day, to charge for "news," and if this sentiment is echoed all over, and if it turns into implementation, then it will serve as yet another example of consolidated, command-and-control media. It's one thing to enable an "echo chamber" where dozens of media voices repeat what the others are saying, but changing the business structure of the medium itself will be another thing entirely.

Like some other commenters here, I would like to believe that the sheer numbers involved in the amateur news-generating population would cause Murdoch's strategy to be impossible... and yet, I've witnessed other "impossible" things seemingly happen according to Murdoch's will.

[joe_the_user]

I think this article ultimately give devastating critique of that kind of thinking: ... the news business, supported for a hundred years by advertising, whose core skill has been selling advertising, believes it must right away, this second, re-create itself with a new business model where advertising is just the cream on top and where it’s the consumer who pays the true cost of newsgathering.

[idm]

I definitely agree - and really, I want my statement to be falsified, since it will be so much worse for it to be confirmed.