The Trusty Servant

It is still not clear what will come of Rupert Murdoch’s threat to introduce some form of charging for putting his newspaper material on the web. I am sympathetic to his basic point. The difficulty is at least partly the lack of a satisfactory micropayments mechanism on the web. To date newspapers have experimented with annual or monthly charging and that seems to be too offputting except for financial newspapers (like the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal) where the readership is unusually rich.

The counter-intuitive point is that it is not at all clear that putting free content on the web hits print revenues. I have not seen any studies on it, but there is some limited evidence on the slightly different case of putting the full text of books onto the web. That usually increases print sales. No one wants to read a book on a screen, just as no one wants to read an entire book standing in a bookshop. In practice, people use the freedom to read the entire book in inconvenient circumstances simply to browse it to see if they want to buy. That could change if book readers become ubiquitous.

The point about newspapers on the web is similar. Unlike the book case, it is feasible to read all you want to from a newspaper on the web. Some people undoubtedly do. But most people prefer to read newspapers in situations where it is particularly inconvenient to do so on a screen – over breakfast, on a train, in a cafe. Convenience usually trumps cost.

So Murdoch’s real concern is that a large group of people are getting a benefit from reading his newspapers online and not paying enough for it. The general pressure on ad revenues is making him look around for other revenue streams.

He is apparently particularly irritated by the blogosphere which he feels is parasitic on the newsgathering work of the mainstream press. That is clearly silly. Is he saying that no one should be allowed to comment on the news unless they also gather the news? Does he think people would stop commenting on the news in blogs if they had to use sources other than web news? Clearly not. So the real complaint must be that large numbers of people are willing to provide comment without charge and that is starting to cut into the willingness of others to pay for their comment.

Clearly the national press is feeling the pinch. But the really stunning development is the decline of the local press. I subscribe to the Met’s news service which emails me a link each time the Met puts out a press release. Most of these are boasts about Met arrests or convictions. Take, for example, this release yesterday:

The court heard that on 8 January 2009, officers, who were on plain clothes patrol in the Erith area, approached Mclean and another man, who were acting suspiciously whilst walking along the pavement in Sandcliff Road. McLean was seen to duck down behind a parked car and place an object underneath. Both men were stopped by the officers and a revolver containing four rounds of ammunition was found hidden under the car. Akili McLean, 25, of Benin Street, Lewisham has been was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court to ten years for possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and two years for possession of ammunition. The sentences will run consecutively.

I almost fell out of my chair. Twelve years for possessing a gun? Why on earth was the sentence so high? The rest of the press release provided no clues except that “over 100 exhibits were shown”. Maybe he had an armoury of a hundred guns? But in that case, why was he only charged with possessing one? It looks to be one of those unduly harsh sentences imposed to discourage others and “demonstrate how seriously” these things are taken.

I used googlenews to try to find more detailed accounts. There was just one. The Kent news reproduced the Met press release verbatim, complete with the canned quote from Det Sgt Nigel Penney, and no additions of any kind. That is certainly a huge change from my youth. Back then local newspapers had quite large staffs of reporters. The local magistrates’ court was considered essential training for any aspiring hack. These days if you go to a typical Old Bailey trial, you will not find a single reporter. They only turn out for occasional trials of exceptional interest.

Just out of curiosity, I checked the offence. s16 Firearms Act 1968 (as amended)

It is an offence for a person to have in his possession any firearm or ammunition with intent by means thereof to endanger life, or to enable another person by means thereof to endanger life, whether any injury has been caused or not.

[Max sentence life imprisonment.]

As a side issue, one wonders how the prosecution proved the “intent to endanger life”. This has clearly caused trouble in the past since s16A was introduced in 1994 with the alternative intent of “to cause any person to believe that unlawful violence will be used against him”, and in any case the lesser s1(1)(a)/(b) offence is clearly intended to cover mere possession of a firearm or ammunition.

… it is an offence for a person to have in his possession … any firearm/ammunition … without holding a firearm certificate in force at the time …

Indeed the possession of ammunition is almost a sine qua non for “intent to endanger life” so the court was obviously throwing the book at the Mr McLean by giving him consecutive sentences for firearm and ammunition.

Still, it makes me wonder whether maybe Murdoch is right. Maybe we bloggers should get out of our chairs. We cannot jet around the world covering every hotspot, but we could occasionally turn up to the local Crown court.