Fairfax Digital vs Murdoch

UPDATE: ok, my bad. FD don't want money for current stories. I'm so used to them asking for money for archived stories that I jumped the gun on this post.... that said, I still prefer News' "no registration' approach. Get me to the content as quickly as possible.

Google News caught my eye this morning with the headline "Al-Qaeda threatens Australia". But when I tried to read the article, I was sent to The Age's website. Of course, they refuse to show me the article without forking over several dollars.

If you find yourself in this situation, I recommend heading over to Rupert Murdoch's NEWS.COM.AU. If you need a MSM fix, Rupe's the man. He has this crazy idea that you should actually be able to READ the news on his site. Whacky concept.

Anyway, here's the link to the story that Al-Qaeda is targetting Melbourne.

Comments

[Daniel]

The Age (and SMH) doesn't want money, but it does ask for a registration. News.com.au however takes its stories offline after about a week, whereas The Age keeps stuff online. So neither is perfect.

[Rob Irwin]

Daniel's on the money here. No money involved; just a small rego process. And they keep the stories available which is great. I can never remember which site does it, and I often link to stories from my blog which don't exist anymore.

[Rob Irwin]

Daniel's right. No money involved; just a small rego process. And they keep the stories available which is great. I can never remember which site does it, and I often link to stories from my blog which don't exist anymore.

[Phillip Molly Malone]

Hi Dude,
Have to agree that the only time I have need a money Subscription is for older stories. Here is the link your probably after (and I didn't need to pay for it):
http://www.theage.com.au/news/war-on-terror/melbourne-next-alqaeda-bomb-target/2005/09/12/1126377213164.html

HTH
Molly

[Bob M]

The Australian ABC also has the story up:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1457890.htm

It's free to view in the sense that you don't have to pay any extra. Your taxes have already been at work here.

I don't know what the sunset on their stories is at the moment, but most of their stuff has a long online life. They've still got some stories from year 2000 available.

[MattyT]

I recommend using BugMeNot where appropriate. :)

http://www.bugmenot.com/

And the wonderful Firefox extension:

http://roachfiend.com/archives/category/extensions/

[Cameron Reilly]

oooh I havent tried that extension yet! WIll install now. God how I love my Firefox extensions. AI Roboform being a must.