Category Archives: Media

Newspapers to go behind paywall

HOLD THE PRESSES, Daily Asteroid, After The News (NNN) — Hearst newspapers will be holding back content from their papers’ free websites, instead charging for some digital news and information. “We are fully confident that both readers and Google will come to the party and give us money,” said Hearst president Steven Swartz, “and not just laugh and ignore us henceforth.”

Dewey defeats TrumanNewspapers plan to fight back against the avaricious parasitism of Google in telling people where to find content the newspapers had put up on the Web for free with a new e-book reader, a variant on the Amazon Kindle. “For only $300, readers can read DRM-locked down versions of our content that they’re paying a subscription for on top. We can’t see how this could possibly fail to work.”

Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has been notably successful in selling valuable original financial reporting that cannot be obtained anywhere else. “So there’s no reason people won’t pay for recycled Associated Press feeds, the latest on Britney and Paris, corporate-backed op-eds, funny cat stories and pretence at holding the government’s feet to the fire.”

Hearst also advocates new advertising and revenue models. “The technical press on the Web shows the way forward: blatant and obvious gutter-slut crack-whoredom. Subtlety doesn’t pay the bills any more — we must enthusiastically welcome the corporate cock into our throats and rectums. Also, I’d like to mention that everyone should use the Windows 7 beta. HLAGH HLAGH HLAGH,” added Mr Swartz, wiping off his chin.

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Phorm phights phoul phreedom phighters

W 40th STREET, New York 10018, Tuesday (NNN) — Beleaguered Internet advertising phirm Phorm is hitting back at critics with StopPhoulPlay.com, in an attempt to lure Internet activists into herniating from laughter.

Abort the fetus and win a Playstation 3! *“It is clear that the campaign against Phorm originates in the sinister manipulations of Alex Hanff and Marcus Williamson,” said Kent Ertegun, CEO of Phorm, “who have used mind control lasers and the killer robot armies of the Open Rights Group and FIPR to deceive millions of Britons into a Communistic fervor of hatred against the engines of the free market and customer demand, the salesmen and marketers, the true creators and enablers of objective value.”

The website, designed in Microsoft Word, uses the infallible public relations format so successfully put into play by the ReligiousFreedomWatch.org site of the Church of Scientology, an upstanding community institution of similarly flawless repute. StopPhoulPlay.com reveals how:

  • At the age of five, Hanff REFUSED to share his crayons with the little girl next to him, saying she was “poopy” and would only draw a picture to be used against him.
  • At age twelve, Williamson accepted MONEY from his mother to buy sweets, but not to tell schoolmates in case they wanted some.
  • Hanff and Williamson may have attempted to access POTENTIALLY ILLEGAL images blocked by the Internet Watch Foundation.
  • Hanff and Williamson have used WIKIPEDIA at least once in their lives.
  • Hanff and Williamson INVADED POLAND in 1939.

“Given the persistence with which they propagate incorrect information, we cannot rule out the possibility that a competitor is involved,” he said. “The competitor goes under the name ‘reality.’ Needless to say, we have no tolerance for an entity of such limited possibilities.

“These people are privacy pirates — people who steal privacy online, off the coast of Somalia. With Internet guns! And drugs! And child pornography!”

Mr Hanff and Mr Williamson said they were unsure whether to sue Phorm into atomic dust for gross defamation or just to let them continue with their infallible public relations work. Phorm shares have dropped from 405p to being rated a “serious infection risk” by the World Health Organization.

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Government shocked, shocked at Ross and Brand

MINISTRY OF BURLESQUE, Church of Satin, Saturday (NNN) — The Government today expressed its “outrage” that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand could not personally be forced to pay the £150,000 fine against the BBC for their prank calls to Andrew Sachs.

Georgina Baillie is pregnant with Russell Brand’s two-headed love child and wants a damn drinkThousands of complaints were filed with Ofcom after the Daily Mail figured it would be a handy front-page outrage for a couple of weeks.

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears said she thought the stars should be made to pay the penalty themselves. “Surely whatever will play well with the Daily Mail is what the good people of this country want. These ‘laws’ only get in the way of doing what is right … this week.”

“This is much more shocking than Fred Goodwin’s pension or ministerial expenses,” said Jacqui Smith. “Particularly mine. Pitchforks and torches that way! Not this way!”

“Hellooo, still mortified and stuff!” said Georgina Baillie. “Oy! Over here! Look, tits! God, I’m never going to be back in Nuts at this rate.”

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Guardian wants free money from Google

GRUB STREET RETIREMENT VILLAGE, Times Old Roman, back when this were all fields (Mediocre Grauniad) — The Guardian Media Group has asked the Government to examine Google News and other content aggregators, claiming they contribute insufficiently to their income.

Soviet Tory propaganda“The newspapers put their content up on the web for free and then Google, the freeloading bastards, tell people where to find it. We told them to pay up or stop using our stuff, and they said OK, they’d stop using our stuff!

“We need the Government to bring back balance, ‘balance’ defined as being able to make them give us money because we want it. You’d think the Internet wasn’t invented to give newspapers and record companies free money!”

The newspaper group argues that traffic from search engines doesn’t make up the cost of producing the content. “Ad revenue has collapsed, so search engine traffic doesn’t bring in enough views to pay for itself. Our inability to sell ads is clearly Google’s problem.”

The Guardian suggests the exploration of new models that “require fair acknowledgement of the value that our content creates, both on our own site through advertising and ‘at the edges’ in the world of search and aggregation. Basically, they should just give us money because we want it. And the music industry too. How about a bailout? Go on, gi’s it.”

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Doom warnings reach “doom warning” level

OMG, Onoez, every day (NNN) — Civilisation is facing imminent doom from dirty bomb attacks, a credit crisis, a cash crisis and morning-after pills for 11-year-old underclass children.

"Oh no!"Further harbingers of the end of all things include your teeth being rotted out of your head by eating five pieces of fruit a day, NHS superbugs that mutter taunts into patients’ ears before dissolving their flesh, people downloading music and films and, of course, Google Street View.

“An explosion in London could destroy your presently fantastic and wonderful way of life,” said Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. “Beautiful boss, lovely coworkers, marvellous housemates and all. However, our CCTV network will keep you safe at all times. Please present your papers to the nice policeman. Keep calm and carry on. Your courage, your cheerfulness, your resolution will bring us victory. Smile!”

In an attempt to stave off inevitable disaster, the Metro, the London Paper and London Lite are cooperating to help save the world by telling anyone not recycling their paper that they have personally doomed the planet, and never mind them printing ridiculous quantities of disposable rubbish without even a very good Sudoku and turning every Tube train into a rolling landfill site. The campaign will be illustrated with pictures of students in bikinis.

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___’s funeral viewed by millions

GRUB STREET, Metro, eternally (NNN) — Britain has said farewell to ___ at the end of an unprecedented week of mourning.

Generic woman in generic coffinIt was an event made by the incredible upsurge of popular feeling in Britain and around the world. Before she died, some may have been hoping that she would grow old, her celebrity would dim and she would be quietly interred in relative obscurity. Even when she died, nobody anticipated the scale of this popular rising.

A ___ mile procession brought her coffin to ___, where politicians and celebrities joined the family in a subdued congregation. Amongst the congregation were such celebrities as ___ and ___. Over ___ people lined the route of her final journey. Some of the crowd wept, some applauded quietly, but most watched in silence.

On top of the coffin was a poignant reminder that this woman known to millions was also a mother — a card to “Mummy” from her sons, ___ and ___, who joined family walking behind the coffin.

Family members read tributes to her at the funeral service. “She was the very essence of compassion,” said ___. ”

There is no question: she was truly the people’s ___.

Inexplicably low ratings for digital channels

FIFTY-SEVEN CHANNELS, Neither Rare Nor Well-Done, forever (Mediocre Grauniad) — The heavily-promoted new series of Mad Men on BBC4 has failed to boost the channel’s ratings, with twenty-four viewers tuning in on Tuesday night, losing out to thirty-six viewers of ITV3’s Ladies of Letters and thirty-three for Sky Three’s reality TV hit I’m The Bottom Of A Barrel, Get Me Out Of Here.

Kill your televisionAll viewers turned out to be newspaper television critics, desperate for uncovered new areas to report on and anything at all to turn into copy.

The show was also beaten in the ratings by people’s dogs watching BBC Parliament, a YouTube video of a kitten jumping off a table and a nostalgic DVD of the little white dot fading into the distance you used to get on black-and-white televisions.

Advertisers are leaving in droves, turning down the opportunity to pay 50p for a half-hour infomercial on UKTV Home Shopping 7 and instead giving it to tramps to shout the product’s name at random commuters at bus stops.

TV executives blame BitTorrent downloads and the existence of computers in general for the decline in viewing figures and asked again for a chunk of the BBC license fee and a tax on all Internet connections, to be paid directly to them. And a pony. “Just keep giving us money, we’ll tell you when it’s enough.”

Blue Peter (fifty-eight viewers) will run tomorrow a special on how to make television ratings out of string, cheese, toilet rolls and cat litter. A grown-up will need to handle the scissors.

“Gloomy Monday” mathematically proven the most depressing day for journalists

THE TUBE, The Bloody Commute, seven bloody AM (NNN) — Phil Space, an expert in depression at the University of Metro, has discovered a mathematical formula to pinpoint today as Blue Monday, the day when six factors come together to leave journalists at their most miserable.

Mondays hate Amy Winehouse tooThe factors are: the dank and gloomy weather; the lack of articles to fill the spaces between the ads; a feeling of monotony writing the seventh “the economy’s utterly sodomised” story; broken New Year’s resolutions to get a more socially worthwhile job, like picking maggots out of a corpse’s arse with your teeth; low levels of motivation; and it’s bloody Monday. Also, that you ran this story last year but that was on January 21st.

The mathematical formula for misery is:

Garrett Lisi’s E8 Equation of Everything

— where P is the weather, O is Barack Obama’s inauguration while we’ve still got Gordon Brown, T is the probability of Abi Titmuss playing Doctor Who’s next companion, B is the lack of stories about students in bikinis in this weather, W is Amy Winehouse flashing her tits around in a smacked-out stupor, R is recycling stories on ever-shorter time scales and H is going past horror at the idea of your boss noticing to losing hope that he ever will.

Phil offers tips for overcoming gloom: “Focus on the good things you do have in your life. If being one of the lucky people who still has a job gives you not even a slight sneer of superiority over the unemployed masses, and instead you have this overwhelming urge to get out a machine gun and kill every fucker on the tube in the morning … well, it’s worth a try. Also, good cheer comes in pints and makes for a bloody happy Friday and Saturday.”

Alistair Darling has been asked to stop visiting investment firm offices in the City talking up optimism and a more positive outlook by City of London street cleaners, who are running low on body bags.

Barrowman exposes himself on radio

TORCHWOOD THREE, Cardiff, Monday (NNN) — Actor John Barrowman has apologised for exposing himself on live radio on Sunday evening. Two complaints were received about the incident, from listeners J. Ross and R. Brand. “We are appalled and outraged,” they said. “We told the Daily Mail and they thought it was funny.”

John Barrowman saluteBarrowman apologised for any offence caused. “I was joining in the light-hearted and fun banter of the show and went too far. I was wrong to do this and it will never happen again. Next time I’ll just say I am and not actually do so. This will make all the difference to our lovely Daily Mail-reading listeners, every one of whom I would have a romantic interlude with. Except I’m gay and married.”

Georgina Baillie was shocked. “I’m shocked, I am. Sure he doesn’t go for girls just a bit? Maybe after a few drinks when his friends aren’t there to see?”

A BBC spokeswoman said: “We do feel that the programme overstepped the mark. We are determined that lessons will be learned from this incident. All BBC radio shows going forward will contain only simulated willy exposures, with the willy exposure substituted with a Radiophonic Workshop sound effect. Probably some sort of ‘Ba-DOING!’ sound, a processed version of the sound of a wooden ruler vibrating on a desk. Everyone loves that one. In addition, we will talk about Y-fronts and boxer shorts rather than willies and balls.”

Darling on economy: “Tough titties”

PAGE 3, Financial Times, Friday (NNN) — Alistair Darling today admitted that the economy was disastrously seized up, with one in twelve London workers likely to lose their job.

Nigella Darling or Alistair LawsonAcross town, Nigella Lawson wore a low-cut dress revealing quite spectacular quantities of well-nourished breastage, with photos in all papers.

In the United States, Wall Street is melting away like Belloq’s face after Indy told him not to look in the Ark and Henry Paulson said he would not use the second $350 billion of the stimulus package, leaving the economy unpushed at a critical time and the Detroit car manufacturers on the verge of collapse.

In Australia, Nicola McLean’s breasts, which had undergone hyperinflation, were marvelously decorative and pointy and set off nicely by the other I’m A Celebrity bikini babes, Dani Behr and Carly Zucker, despite the influx of Robert Kilroy-Silk and kangaroo testicles.

Back in the UK, the economy is deflating, the banks have seized up, no-one is buying or selling houses and next week you’ll have to eat your shoes. And John Sergeant is a huge tit.

“But at least we’re not short of massive boobs,” said Mr Darling. “And call and vote on Strictly Come Dancing! Before the telly’s repossessed.”