Rupert Murdoch was right to build a wall around the Wall Street Journal and the Times. But downmarket the scene changesThe genuine point approximately the Sun’s decision to blow up its paywall is that Rupert Murdoch can be wrong as well as right. Remember how he decreed,five years ago, that all his papers would have subscription walls because you couldn’t possibly give news absent free. Well, and cancel that last pronouncement (as well as his visionary belief that Apple iPads “may well be the saving of the newspaper industry” before his tablet Daily crashed and burned). There are no immutable rules in this free versus paid-for game.
Tony Gallagher,the smart recent editor at the Bun, is making its print form a tighter, or newsier product. But does the fact that its unique user scores – around a tenth of those for Gallagher’s old outfit,the Telegraph – mean that the Sun’s fabled political clout has shrivelled? Does joining in some worldwide “conversation” bring governments to heel? Only whether you reflect that the Daily Mail’s impact around Downing Street has increased exponentially because its now runs “the world’s biggest newspaper online” (as opposed to pursuing a parallel conversation keener on ample cleavages” than a Dacre boot in some hapless bureaucrat’s ribs).
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Source: theguardian.com