The thing is I didn’t discover this news on Twitter. For a start I don’t follow Clarence House, because frankly I’m not that interested in them (and even if I did follow everyone I found interesting I wouldn’t have time left to breathe).

But I am interested in seeing a variety of news stories; if I read only the news I gather myself then I will only ever see what I want to, and never discover anything particularly new or challenging. Curated news is still king for me, be that online or in print (and I’ve yet to find an online newspaper lying discarded in a train carriage).

Also I need to feel confident that I’ll find at least something of interest, and I want it to be written well. That takes skill in both writing and editing, and at the moment it remains the professional media that instills in me the most confidence in those areas.

Anyway, you’ve probably read far too much hot air on this subject; and so I say goodnight.

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(This is a very under-developed thought; I’m only putting it here because it’s too long for Twitter.)

I never buy the Financial Times, but I used to read the website before they started charging for content. So at that point I lost out on that news perspective. When other traditional media outlets start charging for online content I don’t expect I will want to pay for those either.

But Rupert Murdoch isn’t stupid, and I rather suspect that his paid-for news model has legs. Although there are plenty of other places to get content for free, they don’t have the same influence with the public and with policy makers; and, more importantly, they don’t command the same level of recognition and trust.

So does that mean that people who currently see themselves as connected, and to some degree influential, will either find themselves forced to pay for news content or face losing that connection?

Has the free news model given people a place in society that they are in danger of losing?

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