news source

A new poll released by Public Policy Polling has found that Fox News is no longer the trusted news source:

Maybe America is waking up? Well not entirely. The poll did find that 67% of Republicans trust Fox, while only 22% of Democrats did. Fox also gets the most trust in the over 65 age group, with 48% trusting them. That number also isn’t shocking, but it is disturbing given the higher voter turn out for the 65+ age group.

Times are tough for poor Rupert, so he has decided the time is coming to charge people to read his news:

Rupert ­Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a ­"malfunctioning" business model.

Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire media mogul last night said that papers were going through an "epochal" debate over whether to charge. "That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the Wall Street Journal's experience," he said.

Asked whether he envisaged fees at his British papers such as the Times, the Sunday Times, the Sun and the News of the World, he replied: "We're absolutely looking at that." Taking questions on a conference call with reporters and analysts, he said that moves could begin "within the next 12 months‚" adding: "The current days of the internet will soon be over."

(emphasis added)

We have heard about the demise of free information on the internet for years. Does Murdoch think he can really change it? How many “exclusives” does any News Corp site have that people are interested in?

I have addressed this before and given my glimpse into what will happen. If a story is big enough, some blogger will pay to subscribe to that site. After that every other blogger will link to that one blogger. So the story will get out and with only one subscription.

Of course if a story is that big then you can bet some other news source will pick it up. Murdoch thinks he can change the internet, but the internet might just end up breaking him.

This should send a real message to the people whose lives were changed last year by Katrina. Instead of worrying about the fact that 1000s of U.S. citizens were losing their lives while hundreds of thousands had lost their homes, the White House instead worried about who was taking the blame for the failures the storm exposed.

From CNN:

The former emergency management chief who quit amid widespread criticism over his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina said he received an e-mail before his resignation stating President Bush was glad to see the Oval Office had dodged most of the criticism.

Michael Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Friday that he received the e-mail five days before his resignation from a high-level White House official whom he declined to identify.

A couple things here. First off, placing blame should not have even been brought up. Instead the White House should have focused solely on how to save the citizens down there and get the aide needed to those that desperately needed it. Hey George - WWJB (Who Whould Jesus Blame).