Chris Ahearn says :“I don’t believe you could or should charge others for simply linking to your content. Appropriate excerpting and referencing are not only acceptable, but encouraged.”

Whilst I can’t disagree that advertising in newspapers does prop it up, The Daily Telegraph in Sydney is mostly ads with very little “journalism”, what they do call news is mostly trash and pandering to the uneducated masses. And the Sydney Morning Herald tries to pass itself off as a more high-brow news source, it too is mostly ads and the same news as in the Daily Telegraph, only more difficult to read on one of Sydney’s unreliable and overcrowded trains or buses.

Both publishers, News Corp and Fairfax, are doing there best to make out that without charging for the news they provide they will go broke, at least we still have the ABC.

You can read the Fairfax view here: www.theage.com.au/national/stop-the-presses-20090808-edmh.html?page=-1

And the News Corp view here: www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25898155-7582,00.html

And the Fairfax view on News Corp’s plan here: www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/not-happy-rupert-readers-say-they-wont-pay-for-online-news-20090807-eco0.html

And for the full article from Reuters: blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/08/04/why-i-believe-in-the-link-economy/

And for what will hopefully continue to be a free online news service visit the ABC : www.abc.net.au/news/

Reuters says linking to news is good is a post from: worldwormweb