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This Just In…
Rupert Murdoch: Newspapers will survive, but in different forms
November 19, 2008
Predictions that the Internet will kill off newspapers are coming from “misguided cynics” who don’t understand that a potentially huge new market of information-hungry consumers exists online, media magnate Rupert Murdoch said in a speech broadcast Sunday. “Too many journalists seem to take a perverse pleasure in ruminating on their pending demise,” the Associated Press quotes Murdoch as saying. “Unlike the doom and gloomers, I believe that newspapers will reach new heights” in the 21st century.
According to Murdoch, papers have an edge over bloggers and other newcomers because readers trust them more. Still, they’ll have to evolve into “news brands” that are delivered in a variety of ways, he said. “It’s true that in the coming decades, the printed versions of some newspapers will lose circulation. But if papers provide readers with news they can trust, we’ll see gains in circulation — on our Web pages, through our RSS feeds, in e-mails delivering customized news and advertising, to mobile phones.”
Murdoch said papers must recognize that online customers will decide what news they want and how they receive it. “To compete today, you can’t offer the old one-size-fits-all approach to news,” the AP quotes him as saying. He cited two of his most prestigious dailies, The Times of London and The Wall Street Journal, as examples of newspaper brands that have won large online readerships.
Journalists who predict the death of newspapers are self-pitying, Murdoch said, “too busy writing their own obituary to be excited by the opportunity” the online market presents. — Compiled by Greg Beaubien for Tactics and The Strategist Online
Comments
Dionne Aiken says:
Interesting post. I think the "newspaper" can survive if advantage is taken of the way in which consumers are consuming information. The medium is the key here- no matter how trusted and reliable the source.
Roger Pynn says:
Rupert, old boy, if you haven’t noticed public confidence in the media is at an all-time low. Why? Could it be that many in the news business have abandoned the basic tenants of journalism and become so comfortable with prefacing their comments with the words “I think” that they’ve forgotten altogether that journalists shouldn’t express their personal opinions? More at http://thestrategicfirm.wordpress.com/.
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