George Parker: Paying For Digital Media… Yawn… Yawn!

Living in Boise, Idaho, I have to get my daily New York Times fix before I end up needing a lobotomy after exposure to the local newspaper. The Times, I prefer in the hard copy version trucked in from Salt Lake City, so I can enjoy it over a couple of pints in my local hostelry, ‘cos I am a curmudgeonly old Luddite and I like my fish and chips wrapped in newsprint, rather than on my Kindle or my future outrageously expensive iSlate. Besides which plastic doesn’t soak up the salt and vinegar quite like the pulped up remains of the Amazon rain forests.

Anyway, moving on… Monday’s business section in the Times had a hilarious piece entitled, “Adding Fees and Fences on Media Sites.” Yes, yet another long screed about how the fucktards of the Fourth Estate are wondering whether they are going to survive though the next decade… Hello guys, apart from the fact you’ve been beating this drum mercilessly for the last decade, have you ever stood back and had a look at what’s happening to everything else in media and entertainment, from film and video to music… Not to mention the implosion of the world’s most fucked up business, advertising? No, I thought not.

Without getting into the argument as to whether or not this discussion is taking place a few years too late, or as a media consultant by the name of Alan D. Mutter, is quoted as saying… “Content providers see that the idea that everything has to be free, supported by ads, isn’t working well, and they’re trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube, but only partially.” Yeah, and good luck with that. As I have said about media in general and social media in particular, we are dealing with a snot nosed generation here, who see it as their God given right to get everything as inexpensively as possible… Unless they worship at the Temple of Jobs, then money is no object… Check out the launch price of the iSlate in a couple of weeks!

To basterdized a song of the seventies… “If you want it… You can have it… And if you’re really smart, you can find a way of getting it for free.” I don’t care what deals press magnates are currently working out with Google and Bing… It ain’t going to happen. And speaking of press magnates, the most extensively quoted source in the whole article is “The Dirty Digger,” as Britain’s Private Eye calls him. Or “The Wizened of Oz” as fanatic readers of AdScam will recognize… For everyone else out there, I am referring to Rupert Murdoch… Described by the NYT writer as… A leading evangelist for the new era! Oh please, this is the guy who has done more to destroy the integrity of the press than Torquemada when burning books. Plus, if you think I’m going to shell out my hard earned money to read the New York Post or any other News Corp publication on-line, I have an Ad Agency called Enfatico I’d like to sell you.

Finally, the other most quoted person in the whole piece is Arianna Huffington, owner, founder and making money hand over fist editor in chief, of the Huffington Post. A new Media publication that makes buckets of money by selling a shit load of advertising while not paying it’s contributors a single penny… ‘Cos, as she has gone on record as saying… “They feel it is an honor to write for me.”

Oh, wait a minute… That’s what Piers said to me ages ago. Just kidding!!!

George Parker is a guest columnist for psfk.com. He is the perpetrator of adscam.typepad.com, which is without doubt, one of the most foul and annoying, piss & vinegar ad blogs on the planet. He is the author of MadScam and his new book, The Ubiquitous Persuaders, which is currently setting the ether ablaze (and which you can order now on Amazon). He will continue to relentlessly promote the crap out of it until you are forced to stab yourself in the eyes with knitting needles.