Free news coming to an end?Follow

I would have thought it would come from AP or Reuters, but the end result is the same, just under licence.

Probably why the WSJ has managed to create subscription service.

Just 'cause I was curious, I browsed over the main page of WSJ Online. Out of 17 stories (non-editorials) I checked, three were AP and the other 14 were WSJ content.

That's not to prove anyone wrong, I was legitimately curious since I remembered it being news when the WSJ started running AP content at all.

I just assumed these days that most news agencies subscribed to wire services.

I almost got a subscription when I lived down closer to the city but I may not be able to get it delivered up here or in Albany.

But freedom to speak to whom? Without the backing of a distribution network, your voice is lost. One the fabulous by products of the internet has been the empowerment of the consumer through message boards, news sites and dare I say it, certain message boards of pissy techies who companies daren't cross. Dell and others have all suffered at the hands of the internet herd. Baaaaaaaa.

Now, the problem is, if making yourself heard on a mass scale would require you to publicise in a mass media outlet that is controlled by the state or state run companies that only paying subscribers sign up to. It could easily turn into a form of soft discrimination.

Free speech is great but as politicians know all too well, you need backing and time to make yourself heard.

Call me a cynic but I am seeing a gradual change of the internet from a place to be free to express yourself to one of a controlled media. But which quango or screening software will control our access?

Your response seems a little blithe from one who lives in a country where freedom of speech is supposedly prized.

This is not about free speech, as the vehicle used to facilitate that free speech.