If you visit a News Limited website both in Australia and overseas, increasingly you'll find that news articles are being hidden behind a "paywall". The reason that they give is that quite understandably they want to derive revenue from content which they have originated and this is a perfectly valid reason. To be fair, the generation of news content is an expensive process and the intellectual property which it generates is valuable.
I wonder what the flip-side to this is though and whether or not this is going to result in either what George Orwell called a "memory hole" in which embarrassing or inconvenient documents "disappear", or something equally as serious, an inability to hold news media to account.
Consider the editorial which the Daily Telegraph ran on the 1st of November, 2011, to do with the NSW Government's sell-off of electricity assets:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/do-nothing-and-it-will-all-go-astray/story-e6frezz0-1226181893930
SELL! That's the recommendation from the state government's special commission of inquiry into privatisation of remaining publicly-owned NSW electricity generators.
It stopped short of recommending the sale of all electricity infrastructure, including poles and wires, but on this issue a commission of inquiry is almost surplus to requirements.
In truth, we have several decades of evidence from Australia and around the world that government does not belong in the business of electricity supply or, more generally, in business at all.
Governments by their nature are neither flexible enough nor responsive enough to consumer demands to run what should be private business pursuits, kept lean and economical by market imperatives and profit motives.
Defenders of government ownership are overwhelmingly those with vested ideological or party political interests.
To say this is an outdated stance is to understate things by an order of magnitude. The overwhelming sweeping philosophy across western economies since the 1970s has been to place as much of the market as can be placed in the market's own hands.
Following these guidelines and the strong counsel of Infrastructure NSW chair Nick Greiner, The Daily Telegraph encourages Premier Barry O'Farrell to engage in a complete sell-off of government-owned power infrastructure.
Then the government can get on with the pursuit of state improvement, funded by power sales and unencumbered by running enterprises best left to private investment.
The Daily Telegraph is of course entitled to its opinion I suppose but if you look back through their online archives, it appears as though the newspaper has changed its mind:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/indepth/keneally-power-sell-off-delivers-dud-deal/story-fn4x9za1-1225989819862
Stunning attack on power sale by state's top treasury official - The Daily Telegraph January 18, 2011
IN a stunning appearance at the power inquiry the state's top treasury official has today attacked the government's sale and revealed tax payers will be liable for billions of dollars in costs, leaving a meagre profit.
Treasury secretary Michael Schur has revealed tax payers will be liable for a $1.2 billion debt to bail out two energy companies, Eraring and Delta, which were sold by Treasurer Eric Roozendaal.
Mr Schur told the inquiry that $600 million will be lost in dividend and tax equivalent payments from the state's coffers in just the next four years.
In addition, Mr Roozendaal had used $1.5 billion in tax payer money to buy a mine to supply coal to the now privately owned gentraders.
Mr Schur's revelations, including another $300 million lost in costs, mean only $1.7 billion is left from the $5.3 billion sale of the state's electricity retailers and gentraders
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-nsw/scrap-the-power-deals/story-fn7q4q9f-1226010333419
Scrap the power deals - The Daily Telegraph February 23, 2011
THE Government's electricity sale contracts should be "rescinded" despite Premier Kristina Keneally warning such a move would cost "hundreds of millions" in compensation, the parliamentary power inquiry will find today.
The findings are contained in a draft report of the inquiry into the Government's controversial power sell-off leaked to The Daily Telegraph.
The final report will be released at noon today.
The recommendations will put pressure on Barry O'Farrell to overturn the sale if elected on March 26.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/billions-lost-power-deal-was-a-sell-out/story-e6freuy9-1225989817664
Billions lost - Power deal was a sell-out - The Daily Telegraph January 18, 2011
BILLIONS will be stripped from the $5.3 billion electricity sale, possibly leaving either sides of politics just $2-3 billion for infrastructure spending promises ahead of the March election, the power inquiry has revealed.
And Premier Kristina Keneally laid down the law yesterday, refusing to give eight former power company directors who resigned in disgust at the sell-off a guarantee the Government would not sue them if they appeared.
The eight will be summoned to appear next Monday. But it is expected, in the face of the Government's threats, they will elect not to.
In 1997, then-premier Bob Carr promised an entire sell-off of the electricity industry to reap $25 billion before he was rolled at state conference.
His successor Morris Iemma proposed a $10-15 billion sale - minus electricity poles and wires - in 2008 before he met the same fate.
Now the Keneally-Roozendaal "gen-trader" model in which retailers and generation trading rights have been sold might yield just $2-3 billion.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sell-off-bad-for-business/story-fn6bmfwf-1225992919366
- Sell-off bad for business
- The Sunday Telegraph January 23, 2011
Why did the NSW Government sell the State's assets in a deal that has angered taxpayers and crippled Labor just months before an election? Political writer Linda Silmalis reports.
ERIC Roozendaal had a spring in his step. After more than two years as NSW Treasurer, the quietly spoken but intensely driven former Labor Party boss was about to pull off what none of his predecessors could manage -- the privatisation of the State's electricity industry.
Admittedly the newspaper is allowed to change its mind but given that News Limited controls more than 70 per cent of Australia's newspaper readership market, it's not a difficult step to suggest that they also help shape the opinions of a great number of voters. One wonders if by writing articles like the above, whether or not the Daily Telegraph actually had a sizeable sway in the outcome of the 2011 New South Wales state election.
If all of the above articles get placed behind a paywall, it makes it harder to hold the newspaper to account on the opinions that it has published.
One thing that especially annoys me is to do with citing an article which I have read in a newspaper. If I've bought a copy of the Australian (we have it on subscription at work) and I wish to quote something from the newspaper, then it used to be that I could post the link so that people could then click through to check the validity of the thing I've quoted. Now that the Australian sits behind a paywall, not only do I have the inconvenience of having to re-type everything I want to quote but anyone who reads it also can not click through and check its validity.
People can no longer hold me to account for what I've written and in turn I can no longer hold the newspaper to account for what they've written.
If it is true that a fair, free and open press is essential in the proper functioning of a democracy, then I think that it is also true that criticism of the press is also essential in protecting that democracy.
Before I close, here is a fun educational film from 1946. I think that the points it makes are still valid... and not hidden behind a paywall:
http://www.archive.org/details/Despotis1946
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