The E-book has been designed and introduced as a new form of reading for today’s generation.  Many people are moving away from published books to internet, so the creation of e-books is a huge breakthrough.  This allows readers to download books onto one digital device that they will have forever. 

In discussion today is who has the rights to older publications?  Many believe that since all of these were published and introduced to the public before any e-book was being thought of, the publication should still own the rights.  Many also believe; however, that the families of the author own the rights to the books.  Publishers rely on these older publications to bring in revenue year after year.  Since these are “best sellers” of their time, they are relied on to have continuous revenue throughout the years to help the publishers.  Allowing them to be purchased with the e-book will take sales away from the publishers.  It has been established throughout the years that the publisher has rights to the books until someone decides otherwise.  The e-book isn’t creating any new form of these older books; however, they are just producing another way to sell them to create revenue.  The e-book, in the end, should benefit somehow from selling the books through this new medium, but the publishers should benefit the most.  They still have the primary rights to the book, since they are the ones who first published it and distributed it to the world.  Just because the e-book has been created for our generation, does not mean the rights to the books has changed.

What do you think is the right thing to do? Who do you believe deserves the rights to these books?  I believe that since the publications are profiting from sales of these old books right now anyways, that they should still receive compensation for the books being sold on e-books.  This is a controversy that is finally being brought into play and will only get bigger with time.

New information has shown that women in television news are being hit the hardest with layoffs.  The dramatic drop of women to men has been 5,000 to 300 and there are no explainations.  It is unbelievable how many women have vanished from television in the past three years and is also disturbing that there are no reasons.

There have been a few interesting topics discussed as to why women are dramatically dropping out of the television business; however, none are for sure.  Is it because people are becoming unsure of womens talents in this workplace?  Women have slowly been gaining ground in the news industry, becoming well known journalists and tv anchors.  We all know Katie Couric, who is currently striving to make the best name for herself in the television industry.  There are also many other women who have created excellent opportunities for the rest of us.  Could it also be that people are becoming prejudice against women?  This may also have to do with faith in a women being in charge in a tv news station.

Both of these topics are silly to be questioned.  Women should not be untrusted or discriminated against for any reason.  I believe we have created a strong name for ourselves as women who can dominate any task given to us.  Women of our past worked to get us the free rights we needed, and now we are following in their footsteps by creating more opportunity.  Becoming CEO’s and Journalist reporters, we have ultimately started something that is unstoppable.  It is crazy to think that what we have been doing over the past years is now falling apart.

Hopefully there is no specific reason that women in television is declining, other than coincidence.  Once the recession is over, I hope to see more women entering the television business once again.

This idea is extremely fascinating and a good way to direct the future.  If google does this then newspaper companies will still be able to be searched through google and will also charge customers if too much content is viewed.  This way their readers won’t go down in any significant amount and also they could potentially make a profit off of it.

In the future, we need a model to follow to help us create a profitable news medium.  The internet is becoming one of the most popular for getting information, so many new ways of getting news is coming out through the internet.  If we could potentially create this google free click method, it could potentially be successful in the future.

There are many questions flying around about what the potential future of journalism could look like? With idea’s flowing and many news mediums emerging, we are all trying to find the new way of news.  It has become a common theme for professionals to explain where they feel journalism in the future is going; however, no one really knows…

A story from the Boston Globe explains Murdoch and his idea’s in a story called “Murdoch calls online fee’s key.”  But didn’t we already know that??  Isn’t it imperative for journalism to be charged in order for it to be profitable?  Murdoch explains that we need to do a better job pursuading consumers that the information they are being presented is the best represented news and that it can’t be given without a fee.  Also, Murdoch explains that news professionals need to take advantage of  the “ongoing migration of audiences,” meaning the movement of consumers from the past newspapers to the present internet medium.

I do believe this is an important idea; however, it isn’t something that people don’t know.  Murdoch is explaining things as if he will decide where the future of journalism is going to be.  We all realize that online news should come with a fee, and that fee depends on the news organization.  We all realize that the internet IS the new way of news because it provides consumers with exactly what they want.  It is important and necessary for news organizations to pick up on this fast and conform to these ways quickly.

The future of journalism IS a scare and is still being speculated by people across the country.  Ultimately, I do not think this is going to be a documented, thought about decision.  I trust that once the right medium has surfaced, then with time, it will become popular and preferred by the news consumers.

Rupert Murdoch is potentially preventing Google from allowing his newspaper content to be searched through their website.  Now, other profitable newspapers are doing the same.  The Dallas Morning News and The Denver Post are both considering this route.  These newspapers; however, want to block google from allowing their paid content to be searched and viewed.  

This, I think, is a smart move by both of these newspapers.  The content that they have, which is not paid for, will be able to be viewed, which will keep their names in the search engine of Google.  Google is a huge search engine, which gives access to thousands of sites and allows people to search for anything and everything.  

Murdoch, who is taking everything off Google, is going to be losing out.  His newspapers won’t be searched for, which will make the names of his papers fall behind others.  Word of mouth is important and when people stop talking about Murdoch and his newspaper, then they will be “out of site, out of mind.”  

I believe that The Dallas Morning News and The Denver Post are both smart for allowing some of their content to be viewed and searched through google.  This will ultimately draw people to their website and almost allow them to dwell on the thought of maybe getting a subscription.  Not allowing any of your website and newspaper to be searched will not lead anyone to your website.  This will bring down your online subscriptions.

Digital media revolution created a change for newspapers.  Instead of creating a newspaper for distribution and finding areas to hand them out to, the internet created a base for all news.  It is easy for reporters to stick their work on the internet and not worry about about distributing it.  Also, the customer doesn’t have to go out and buy a newspaper.  Ultimately, this is why the newspapers have declined so much.

The University of Missouri created a newspaper called the Columbia Missourian.  This newspaper has student journalists working to create stories about the community that will be used in newspaper.  The students work for no salary and no compensation; however, they do the work for credit for a journalism class to help finish school.  In a recent story, newspaper professionals say that this may be where the future of newspapers may be headed.

Since this school has created the newspaper for so long, I think that this is why the newspaper is so successful.  As a model for future journalism; however, I don’t know if this will solve the newspaper problems.  This may be an important model for communities and local reporting.  With cheap labor and students working for potential credits in a class, you know you will get maximum effort from them.   If we have editors and professional journalists with experience looking over them, then we know we will be getting unbiased and credible stories. 

Since we do not know where the future of journalism is going to go, it is important to keep an open mind.  Potentially we have break throuoghs in anything to help keep newspapers alive.  This is a good idea, but where we will go in the future, still is unknown.

What do you think about this model for the future of journalism?

Oprah Winfrey recently announced that she will stop her show in 2011 in order to pursue a cable television network called OWN, Oprah Winfrey Network.  Throughout the years Winfrey has created a money making name for herself with the Oprah Winfrey show.  She has generated a lot of viewers to the daytime television stations, which ultimately brings in a lot of revenue for these stations. Now that she is stopping her show these stations are wondering what they are going to do with all the open time slots.

Oprah has created an empire with her name, including television shows, magazines and books.  Now that she is going to start a cable channel, she is going to expand her empire so much more.  Oprah created a lot of traffic to daytime television channels, which has given many other shows a chance to shine.  Now that Oprah is leaving the daytime television networks, many people will stop watching the channel, leaving them at a loss.  The daytime television channels are now going to have to find another talk show to draw attention to their channel.  Since Oprah was such a hit for so many years and has created so much publicity, it is almost impossible to ever find another show as important as Oprah’s was.

Oprah will move on to create her own television network, OWN, which will ultimately take a lot of viewers away from other channels.  Since there are so many dedicated fans who watch Oprah’s show religiously everyday, they will now begin to watch her channel, which may have another show of hers on it.  This is leading to a lot of controversy because now Oprah is taking away from other channels and creating a lot of competition.

What do you think of Oprah leaving daytime television to create her own cable channel?

I love sports and have grown up playing softball for 14 years of my life.  I enjoy watching sports and the competitiveness of the game, which is why I feel like I would do so well in sports news.  Even though sports news isn’t a “new media ecosystem” because it has already been around for so long, I do believe it’s the type of news people are slowly leaning toward.  We have dedicated ourselves to certain news and enjoy following stories until maturity.  As a whole, our country loves gossip and sports, which has led us to focus on gossip as news.  Television has channels dedicated to sports news all day, with updates and plays that continuously refresh sports lovers with new headlines.  In comparison with this, we have channels and shows dedicated to celebrity gossip; what is true and what is false.  

If I were graduating in December, this is the type of job I would be looking for.  I would be able to update people on news that they want to hear about and enjoy my job while doing it.  I don’t think you could ask for more.

An article from pcmag.com explains that if News Corp. gets rid of its publications from google, then the Wall Street Journal will have about 25% less traffic.  Murdoch says that he is going to move the WSJ into subscription based only in the future.  

Google doesn’t think it is a big deal that News Corp. is going to remove its newspapers and other content from their search engine because they are there for these newspapers own good.  It is important for these newspapers to want their stuff on google since so much traffic is driven to their websites because of this.  If it weren’t for google, many newspaper websites would be looked passed.  

If News Corp. goes through with this, pulling their stuff from google, then they are guessing a 25% drop in traffic flow to the Wall Street Journal website.  Murdoch believes that what they lose in traffic over the internet with be gained back with subscription customers.  What do you think?

I believe that this could potentially hurt the Wall Street Journal.  Unless Murdoch has something up his sleeve that is different from other news organizations to help them be more competitive, I don’t see how they will get more subscription customers.  Taking their papers off of google is going to hurt the newspaper in the end because when everyone searches for a story through google, the Wall Street Journal won’t come up.  In time, most people will forget about the Wall Street Journal’s online publications.  I don’t think; however, that by getting rid of their stuff from google it will help out their subscriptions to print.

In the works right now is a potential deal of Comcast to take over NBC.  After the deal is finished, Comcast will have a 51% share in NBC.  Since Comcast is the biggest cable company and NBC is a huge broadcasting and cable company in the world, this deal will be huge news to the world.

Many say that this deal with be under government scrutiny because of the extremity of the situation.  Both companies coming together and having so much popularity and profit will ultimately create an unstoppable organization.  It is almost scary how these mergers are happening throughout our country.  Companies are becoming so desperate and concerned about their future that it is imperative that they merge with other companies to gain more profit.  When two organizations, like NBC and Comcast, get together after having so much success on their own, it is almost unspeakable the impact they will have together.  In class we discussed vertical integration and this is exactly what companies are beginning to do.

Not only is it scary what Comcast and NBC could create together that would impact society for the better, but what happens when they begin making decisions to hurt competitors.  In the news article, the reporter mentions the fact that Comcast could use this to their advantage by blocking competitors access to NBC’s channels.  This is why the government is going to have to watch over this deal closely.  Many companies that are now merging are doing so for competitive advantage, but are ultimately creating controversy.  It is unethical to not allow access to a certain channel just because you happen to own it, much like Comcast could do to NBC, but companies still do it and get away with it for the most part.  

With all of these new mergers and more to come in the future, government is going to have to keep a closer eye on what is going on in order to keep neutrality.  Who knows what the future looks like in journalism, but we can see from what is happening right now that it is becoming competitive.  News outlets and other companies are striving to pursue anything they possibly can to make it in the world and ultimately have a future in news.