A recent study from the University of Texas suggests that trying to determine who will pay for news online is more complex than finding out what sort of news is popular, reports Nieman Lab. The article explains that, confusingly, “consumers don’t always use what they prefer, and they’re not always willing to spend money on what they use.”

In the wake of Rupert Murdoch’s appearance before the Leveson inquiry, Jeff Sonderman at Poynter summarises a debate about whether constant live-tweeting of important events helps or hinders journalism.

PBS Mediashift has published an article arguing that news companies can benefit from frictionless sharing, but that it often rubs users the wrong way.

Why would a company pay a newspaper for advertising, when it can broadcast directly to its audience online? The question has long been perplexing newspaper companies, who are seeing their revenues drop as a consequence of brands cutting them out of the advertising process and going straight to Twitter or Facebook to reach their customers.  

But instead of fighting the shift, the New York Times Company launched a new advertising initiative yesterday, which aims to benefit from the fact that brands are becoming their own publishers. Ricochet, as the Times’s product is called, hopes to generate revenue by allowing brands to select specific New York Times content that is relevant to their customers, and then to share links to a version of that content surrounded by their own advertising.

“In the traditional advertising model, brands reach audiences through content; by contrast, using Ricochet, content reaches audiences through brands," explains the vice president of research and development at the Times, Michael Zimbalist, quoted in the official press release.

Many people see tech giants as the death of journalism. For one thing, they suck up much of the ad revenue that used to go to newspapers. For another, they make users accustomed to being given content for free. But rather than killing the news, are big digital players like Google simply forcing it to be reinvented?

This is what Robert Andrews suggests in an article, published today by paidContent, which covers a meeting of Paley Center’s international council of media executives in Madrid. Andrews quotes the head of news products and Google+ programming at Google, Richard Gingras, and Facebook’s journalism manager Vadim Lavrusik, who both presented the media executives with ways that journalism would be reformed with technology.

Among the points that Gingras made, was that technology was upending the traditional story form. “There will be a day – and it should not be far from now – where we can create persistent forms of stories not written in narrative form but in (Google) Fusion Tables and query strings, status updates and tweets,” said Gingras, quoted by Andrews.

As the fallout continues over allegations of phone hacking and corruption at News International, Rupert Murdoch appeared before the Leveson Inquiry today to answer questions about his personal relationship with politicians and the political influence wielded by his UK newspapers.

Under the intense gaze of international media outlets, Murdoch told the inquiry that he had never used the reporting from his papers as a way to further his business interests. "I have never asked a prime minister for anything," Murdoch told the inquiry, also stating, "I take a particularly strong pride that we have never pushed our commercial interests in our newspapers."

With questions scrutinising his relationships with UK Prime Ministers as far back as Margaret Thatcher, the inquiry sought to establish whether the media mogul had undue political influence in the UK. Murdoch downplayed his political pull, saying for example that, “I met Mr. Blair, if you look at the record, an average of two, maybe three times in the same year.” He also stressed, "I, in 10 years he was in power, never asked Mr Blair for anything, nor did I receive any favours."

Paywall, begone—for a limited time, that is. Starting this past Monday and lasting until May 6, The Boston Globe is offering readers a free trial of all of its online content on BostonGlobe.com to show off its new elements and try to gain some new subscribers in the process, paidContent reported.

By entering their email addresses, users will have complete access to online content, including the downloadable ePaper version of The Boston Globe, the article said. The free trial, which also includes a deal in which users can subscribe online for $0.99 for the first eight weeks, is sponsored by Coldwell Banker, according to the Globe website.

Peter Doucette, Globe Executive Director of Circulation Sales and Marketing, told paidContent, “The impetus for the free trial is getting the word out on new features, including the Boston Globe ePaper.”

As we previously reported, The Boston Globe launched its ePaper version, a replica of the print edition that can be read on laptops, mobiles, and tablets, in March. The replica edition comes equipped with several new features, including a text-to-speech option with audio-recorded sections of the paper.

The lawyer representing Bradley Manning, the 24-year-old US soldier accused of having leaked a massive trove of classified documents to WikiLeaks, has said that his trial is being endangered by the US government’s lack of transparency and by failures on the part of the prosecution.

The Courthouse News Service reported yesterday that Manning’s attorney David Coombs has condemned "a cataclysmic failing of the government to understand all aspects of the discovery process."

According to the article, Coombs has complained of the prosecution first refusing to share certain evidence with the defence on the grounds that it was classified, only to reverse its statements within a matter of days. Coombs has also implied that government prosecutors have made mistakes with the legal process, and have failed demonstrated full knowledge of their legal obligations.

The Courthouse News Service reports that in Coomb’s memo “nearly every line of text quoting a government memo or email has been blacked out in redactions”. The article points out that the information that has been withheld reflects “the intense secrecy surrounding the case”.

“Three-quarters of the world’s top 100 largest newspapers are published in Asia,” said Jacob Mathew, President of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, at WAN-IFRA’s Publish Asia conference, held earlier this month in Bali. “Print circulations are growing, a fact that is not easily explained away by those who insist on predicting the death of newspapers. Millions of Asians turn to their daily paper as their primary trusted source of news and information.”

Mathew, who is also the executive editor and publisher of the Malayala Manorama Group in India, was just one of the speakers at WAN-IFRA’s 12th annual Asia conference to address the question of why Asian newspapers are continuing to grow, even as print declines in other regions.

Participants, including Chua Wee Phong, Executive Vice President of Circulation for Singapore Press Holdings, Jack Matthew, CEO of Fairfax Metro Media in Australia and Azrul Ananda, Director of Jawa Pos in Indonesia, focused on a number of factors, including the success of many Asian companies in protecting print revenues and then reinvesting the funds in digital expansion.

A full summary of the conference is available to WAN-IFRA members here.

It’s easy to find pessimistic statements about the impossibility of traditional newspapers making real money from online news. But the gloom isn’t everywhere. Mail Online’s publisher Martin Clarke told investors last Wednesday that the newspaper website is expecting to become profitable for the first time this year.

According to paidContent, Clarke stated that the site expects to break even this year, with revenues of £25m. This figure is expected to rise to £45m in 2013 and £100m within the next five years. Clarke shares these projections despite the fact that, last November, Martin Morgan, CEO of Mail Online’s parent company DGMT, said that “profitability on a meaningful scale is not going to be until 2013 or so,” according to paidContent.  

The Chinese Communist party newspaper People’s Daily has raised 1.4 billion yuan ($219 - $222 million) after filing an Initial Public Offering (IPO) for its website www.people.com.cn. As The Financial Times reported on Friday, this figure is almost three times the paper’s initial target of 527m yuan. The FT writes that people.com.cn now has a market capitalisation of $876m – rivalling that of The New York Times, which is valued at $943m.

The FT suggests that the Chinese authorities are hoping that the IPO will help state media expand their global influence. The financial paper points out that although state Chinese media have been commercially successful, tehy is vastly overshadowed by private Chinese digital companies like Sina and Tecent. Now, however, the Chinese state media seem to be looking to compete more aggressively. The FT quotes People’s Daily, which states, “we need to increase our popularity, expand the range of products and services we offer, reach a wider audience and increase page hits per visitor.” With the apparent aim of expanding its editorial impact, Chinese state television is also constructing a broadcasting centre in Washington, notes The FT.

Gavin O’Reilly has resigned from his position as group CEO of Independent News & Media, it was widely reported today. According to the Guardian, he has had a long-running dispute with the company’s biggest shareholder, Denis O’Brien, who has a 22% stake in the company, compared to the O’Reilly family’s 13%.

“After 19 eventful years with the company, it is time for me to pursue new opportunities. It had become clear that recent and public shareholder tensions were proving an unnecessary distraction for both me and the company and this was not in the best interests of the company," O'Reilly is quoted in the Irish Independent as saying.

Sir Anthony O’Reilly, Gavin’s father, acquired the Irish Independent in 1973 and as CCO he built up an international newspaper group with papers in the UK, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Gavin O’Reilly took over as CEO in May 2009, as part of a deal with O’Brien to change the company’s strategy. INM’s London-based papers, the Independent and Independent on Sunday, both loss-making, were sold to Alexander Lebedev in early 2010 to reduce the company’s massive debt.

O’Reilly will be replace by Vincent Crowley, chief operations officer of the group.

Storify, the popular curation tool that allows users to create stories by pulling together elements from Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Instagram and other social networks, has announced that it has struck its first syndication deal, with the news app Pulse as its partner.

A selection of Storify’s feeds will now be available on the popular newsreader app, which allows users to select a number of news organisations, blogs and social networks, and see their latest content collected within a single display.  According to TechCrunch, Storify’s co-founder Burt Herman says that Pulse will start by making just nine Storify feeds available, but this number may be expanded based on the response from users.

TechCrunch quotes Herman, who clarifies that “Pulse users can follow certain select user accounts that have been doing great work with Storify, including The Washington Post, Al Jazeera and the White House.” He explains further: “We’re also offering our own Storify Featured Stories feed as a channel, where we curate the day’s best stories created across the platform – the same stories that are also featured daily on our own homepage.”