French newspapers v. Google
By Mika Rekai - Monday, November 12, 2012 - 0 Comments
France threatens to take the Internet search giant to court over getting rich from revenue-starved media sites
REMY DE LA MAUVINIERE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
For media agencies, producing good content is expensive, and giving it away online has never made much sense as a sustainable business model. As readers have dropped print subscriptions and migrated to the web, newspapers have suffered years of plunging revenue. Many hoped the losses would be temporary as advertisers also moved online, but news sites still aren’t reaping the benefits. According to the Newspaper Association of America, in 2011, for every $25 lost in print revenue, newspapers made only $1 online.
While many news organizations, including the Globe and Mail and the Postmedia chain in Canada, have put in place online paywalls, a more radical solution is unfolding in France that could put an end, once and for all, to the industry’s crisis. French newspapers, with the help of the socialist government of François Hollande, are going after Google.
Many companies spend millions to advertise on the Internet, but instead of doing so on sites that produce content, the money largely goes to search engines (i.e. Google) and web aggregators (widely used sites that provide links to news content). Last month, leading French newspaper publishers called on the government to adopt a law that would require Google to make payments to news sites for displaying links to their content. Google, which earns $3 billion every month in ad revenue, said in a statement that it “could not accept” the move and “would be required to no longer reference French sites” as a consequence of such a law. Forcing Google to pay for linking to news content, a spokesperson says, would threaten Google’s “very existence.” Continue…
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Bieber beats up paparazzo?
By Emma Teitel - Monday, May 28, 2012 at 8:10 PM - 0 Comments
Head: Justin Bieber, (Chris Pizzello/AP Photo). Body: Robert Stieglitz (Jens Meyer/AP Photo). Montage by: Erica Alini.
It looks like all of Justin Bieber’s rough housing with Mike Tyson and friends has finally paid off. The Stratford, Ont.-born teen heartthrob turned lesbian icon is now a suspect in a “misdemeanor battery” case in Calabasis, California, where he currently lives. Bieber and longtime celibacy sponsor Selena Gomez, the story goes, were leaving a local shopping mall on Sunday afternoon, when a paparazzo tried to take J.B.’s photo, allegedly blocking the pop star’s car in the process.
According to said paparazzo, a scuffle ensued, one Bieber apparently won–because the next thing the paparazzo knew, JB had driven off, leaving him with a very convenient tummy ache. (Onlookers say a lawyer who happened to witness the altercation immediately approached the paparazzo and suggested he call an ambulance and file a police report–likely with an eye to a possibly lucrative lawsuit.) The police arrived shortly after. According to TMZ, “the photog complained of pain in his upper torso, an ambulance was summoned and he was taken to a local hospital where he was examined and released a short time later”.
So…
In case you were wondering whether paparazzi have even a morsel of self-respect, the answer is officially no. Because the only thing worse than being beaten up by Justin Bieber is, I suspect, willfully telling everyone you were beaten up by Justin Bieber.
As for Biebs himself, I can’t say I feel sorry for him, what with the never ending supply of money, fans (he is said to gain a Twitter follower every other second) and outlandish gifts from big sister Ellen Degeneres. But this video does make me feel even less sorry for the paparazzi than Bieber himself.
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Coyne v. Wells on the sad state of the media business
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 27, 2009 at 3:36 PM - 0 Comments
Watch the HQ Version…
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Coyne v. Wells on the sad state of the media business
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 27, 2009 at 3:35 PM - 26 Comments
Our weekly video podcast
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Megapundit: Young, broke and Liberal
By selley - Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 2:04 PM - 0 Comments
Must-reads: Don MacPherson on the magic of legislation.
Media matters…
National Post attacked fromMust-reads: Don MacPherson on the magic of legislation.
Media matters
National Post attacked from the left! CBC attacked from the right! All is well at The Globe and Mail!If the Post were to fall into liberal (or Liberal) hands, the Globe‘s Lawrence Martin says “it would be like the Liberals losing the Toronto Star.” No more daily bashing of Stéphane Dion; no more giving “the Harper government the benefit of the doubt on every issue imaginable”; no more gross caricaturization of other newspapers’ editorial positions… oh, wait, that’s Lawrence Martin. In any case, we’re not totally clear on why Jerry Grafstein (or anyone else) would necessarily turn the paper hard to the left just on principle, if there was a business case to stay in bluer territory. The current owners aren’t exactly right-wing ghouls, after all—heck, as recently as 2005, David Asper himself gave $5,000 to the Liberals!
The Toronto Sun‘s Peter Worthington isn’t surprised to learn CBC employees are profoundly unhappy with their jobs, because unlike private sector media, there’s no “accountability” to the viewers, listeners and readers, and no chance to really make a splash. “The Mother Corp. knows best,” he sneers. “It forcefeeds listeners and viewers with what it thinks they deserve. If the public doesn’t like it, let them write letters or phone Rex Murphy on CBC Radio Sunday afternoons.”
