Journalism and freedom

He also argues that government funding compromises independent journalism and is a greater threat to competitive and unbiased press than digital technologies are.

The debate surrounding "Journalism and Freedom" has focused on the threat of new technologies, and the role that they play in the decline of traditional newspapers.

[2] Within the report, free online content and business models were blamed for their part in the downturn; an opinion in agreement with Murdoch's article.

Traditional print based media relies heavily upon advertisements and classified adverts for the generation of the majority of their revenue, which accounts for upwards of three quarters of total income.

There are also claims of hypocrisy in what Murdoch says as The Wall Street Journal has been criticised for not providing links to competitors in their own articles.

Murdoch's vision of the future for newspapers online is that if readers are targeted and the content offered is of a high quality, people will be willing to pay for it.

Portable devices with considerably better processors, such as smartphones, laptops and tablet PCs which has made the gathering and dissemination of information much easier and increased the connection possibilities of news content which can be accessed by a larger number of people.

[11] Murdoch states that adherence to business models based upon advertising on the part of news papers is responsible for declining revenues.

This, he argues, means that journalists and readers alike have perhaps been able to research more thoroughly using search engines, stumbling serendipitously upon sources online which they may not have encountered in an analogue environment.

He comments that this it is particularly unfair to edit and rewrite articles that journalists have invested their time and effort in, especially in cases when they are not cited as being the original author or plagiarised.

He challenges that this kind of behaviour constitutes fair use and that those who do not contribute or create the news content that they publish on their websites or blogs can profit from the efforts of the aforementioned journalist while adding very little themselves.

Also, Murdoch's own companies were as guilty for aggregating content like the political tracker on Fox News.com and the Rotten Tomatoes web site.

One instance of where governments have withdrawn from the industry came with the rise of e-government, bringing about less of a need for local authorities to pay for advertising space in newspapers.

There is a debate between those who are calling for more government funding to support the industry and others who believe this would be contrary to free speech and create unfair competition.

Murdoch asserts that newspapers themselves need to look at new ways of surviving, competing and generating revenue as government financing merely "props up those who are producing things that customers do not want".

He believes that the governments role should be to protect the intellectual property of the newspapers and their journalists, get rid of regulations which hinder investment, and not restrict Cross ownership in the media.