• Time, Wednesday, August 12, 2009 12:14 AM

News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch recently announced that he was going to start charging for online news content by July 2010 - and traditional news executives collectively exhaled. Finally, a way to make money again.

Is Murdoch's declaration a classic Rupertian move or the action of a desperate man? The switch to an online pay model smacks of virility and aggression, the Murdoch of yore. "If we're successful, we'll be followed fast by other media," he said. But the mogul is 79 years old. It's an open question as to who will cease to exist first: Rupert or the newspaper as we know it.

Murdoch's conundrum remains that his advertising-driven properties - news and broadcast TV - are suffering, while his pay-for-content properties - movies and cable - are holding steady or growing. So why not, he figures, get paid for all the content?

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