by  Chloe Albanesius

News Corp. will likely pull all of its newspaper content from Google News once its switches from an ad-supported to a subscription-based model, according to Chairman Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch on Friday sat down with Sky News, of which News Corp. is a partial owner, to discuss the impact of the Internet on news, among other things.

The Australian media tycoon has been critical of the Google News aggregation model, as well as similar offerings from Microsoft and Ask.com, which he says is tantamount to stealing. When asked why he has not pulled News Corp.-owned material from Google News, Murdoch said that it will likely happen down the road.

“I think we will,” Murdoch said. “But that’s going to be when we start charging. We do it already with the Wall Street Journal.”

Google has argued that its news aggregator simply points users to content online and actually helps drive traffic to news sites. Murdoch was not impressed by Internet traffic and said he was more interested in finding loyal readers.

“What’s the point of having someone … who likes a headline they see in Google, come to us?” he asked. “The fact is, there’s not enough advertising in the world to go around to make all the Web sites profitable. We’d rather have fewer people coming to our Web site but paying.”

At this point, users can see the first paragraph of most articles in the Wall Street Journal, but to read the rest of the story online, they must sign up for a subscription. Murdoch was not sure that that is the approach he’ll take with all his publications.

“There’s a doctrine called fair use, which we believe could be challenged in the courts and barred altogether, but you know, it’s OK,” he said. “We’re getting a lot of advertising revenue, so we’ll take that slowly.”

In addition to the Journal, News Corp. owns Dow Jones, the New York Post, six newspapers in the U.K., including The Sunday Times and The Sun, and 25 publications in Australia. The company also owns Fox News and social networking site MySpace.

Murdoch brushed off the suggestion that people will not be able to afford subscriptions.

“Everyone can afford a newspaper; they’re the cheapest things in the world,” he said. “Think what you get out of it. It’s fabulous. And it’ll be even cheaper when you get it electronically.”

He was also not concerned about competing with publications that stick with the free, ad-supported model. “We’re better and if you look at most of [the competitors'] stuff, it’s stolen from the newspapers now and we’ll be suing them for copyright,” Murdoch said. “They’ll have to spend a lot more money on a lot more reporters to cover the world when they can’t steal from newspapers.”

http://www.pcmag.com/

For four decades there have been rumours that Marilyn Monroe’s death was not a simple suicide. Now a Los Angeles-based Australian writer and director, Philippe Mora, has uncovered an FBI document that throws up a chilling new scenario.

BOBBY KENNEDY’S affair with the screen idol Marilyn Monroe has been documented, but a secret FBI file suggests the late US attorney-general was aware of – and perhaps even a participant in – a plan “to induce” her suicide.

The detailed three-page report implicates the Hollywood actor Peter Lawford, Monroe’s psychiatrist, staff and her publicist in the plot.

The allegations suggest the 36-year-old actress, who had a history of staging attention-seeking suicide attempts, was deliberately given the means to fake another suicide on August 4, 1962. But this time, it is suggested, she was allowed to die as she sought help.

The document, hidden among thousands of pages released under freedom-of-information laws last October, was received by the FBI on October 19, 1964 – two years after her death – and titled simply “ROBERT F KENNEDY”.

It was compiled by an unnamed former special agent working for the then Democrat governor of California, Pat Brown, and forwarded to Washington by Curtis Lynum, then head of the San Francisco FBI. Despite a disclaimer that it could not be sourced or authenticated, it was considered important enough to immediately circulate to the FBI’s five most senior officers, including director J. Edgar Hoover’s right-hand man, Clyde Tolson.

The report was in effect buried for decades as a classified document, and even the released version contains censored sections. Never before mentioned despite thousands of articles, books and documentaries about her death, it details aspects of Kennedy’s on-and-off affair with the movie star, including sex parties and a lesbian dalliance, as well as her emotional departure from 20th Century Fox and descent into depression.

Critically, it raises an alleged conspiracy, apparently overseen by Lawford, for Monroe to unwittingly commit suicide with the drug Seconal, a barbiturate used to treat insomnia and relieve anxiety. The document gives no precise reason why she would be killed but hints it may be linked to her threats to make public her affair with Kennedy, as other conspiracy theories have previously claimed. It states in part: “Peter Lawford, [censored words blacked out] knew from Marilyn’s friends that she often made suicide attempts and that she was inclined to fake a suicide attempt in order to arouse sympathy.

“Lawford is reported as having made ’special arrangements’ with Marilyn’s psychiatrist, Dr Ralph Greenson, from Beverley Hills. The psychiatrist was treating Marilyn for emotional problems and getting her off the use of barbiturates. On her last visit to him he prescribed Seconal tablets and gave her a prescription for 60 of them, which was unusual in quantity especially since he saw her frequently. On the date of her death … her housekeeper put the bottle of pills on the night table. It is reported that the housekeeper and Marilyn’s personal secretary and press agent, Pat Newcomb, were co-operating in the plan to induce suicide.”

Read More:

http://www.smh.com.au/

SYDNEY — Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says all 13 people on board a chartered plane that crashed en route to a tourist region of Papua New Guinea are dead.

Rudd told parliament Wednesday that Papua New Guinea officials informed Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith that no survivors were found in the wreckage discovered earlier in the day.

The plane went down Tuesday morning in bad weather on approach to an airport nestled in the rugged Kokoda region. Nine Australians, one Japanese and three Papua New Guineans were on board. Read the full story

(AP) An overnight ferry packed with sleeping passengers flipped in heavy seas near the Pacific island nation of Tonga, leaving more than 30 people missing and feared dead, officials said Thursday.

Rescuers who plucked more than 50 survivors from the water were hopeful of finding more clinging to wreckage strewn over a wide area, but positive signs were fading after almost a full day’s searching. Read the full story