I think I understand where you’re coming from, but boiling the whole debate down to a paywall vs advertising model is a bit simplistic imo.

Quality journalism has a value. The fact that most of what Rupert publishes is complete rubbish that people wouldn’t pay for misses the point…

With an advertising model there will always be at least potential perceptions of bias and conflicts of interest. Taxes aren’t the answer.

But. (disclaimer, I know next to nothing about the paywall debate)

Isn’t the key to any good and sustainable business model, differentiation? So, how can Murdoch and other news moguls make money from news and compete with the likes of Crikey or the ABC?

I would argue it lies in investigative and insight-based journalism. The traditional news model as we know it is not sustainable with the advent of Twitter and other real-time content sharing sites. The power of citizen journalists, the technology which allows us to spread news quickly, and widely, all compound to make the current online news offerings superseded and frankly, laughable.

So, if you can find your difference in the market (i.e quality journalism which consumers can’t get anywhere else) then you will find the way to make money. And yes, that is a combo of both advertising and paywalls.

But I also hope that this translates to the print press. I love the Sunday morning tradition of having a coffee and opening the broadsheet. I don’t love going onto commercial news sites online, mostly for the advertising!