The business model for news is and always has been broken and Rupert Murdoch can't fix it

In his remarks to the Federal Trade Commission's hearings on Journalism and the Internet, held at the beginning of this month, Rupert Murdoch made some characteristically bold statements about his views on the future of journalism. In Murdoch's world, the new model of journalism is one where people pay for journalism online. Murdoch is right when he asserts that the old model based on classified advertising is a failure, but he is wrong to suggest that people will actually pay for news. They never have paid for general interest news - not really, anyhow - and there's little to suggest that this historical precedent will change.