From cnet.com.
Also, if you have a digg account, digg it here.
With newspapers cutting back and predictions of even worse times ahead, Rupert Murdoch said the profession may still have a bright future if it can shake free of reporters and editors who he said have forfeited the trust and loyalty of their readers.
“My summary of the way some of the established media has responded to the internet is this: it’s not newspapers that might become obsolete. It’s some of the editors, reporters, and proprietors who are forgetting a newspaper’s most precious asset: the bond with its readers,” said Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive officer of News Corp. He made his remarks as part of a lecture series sponsored by the Australian Broadcast Corporation.
Murdoch, whose company’s holdings also include MySpace and the Wall Street Journal, criticized what he described as a culture of “complacency and condescension” in some newsrooms.
“The complacency stems from having enjoyed a monopoly–and now finding they have to compete for an audience they once took for granted. The condescension that many show their readers is an even bigger problem. It takes no special genius to point out that if you are contemptuous of your customers, you are going to have a hard time getting them to buy your product. Newspapers are no exception.”
“It used to be that a handful of editors could decide what was news-and what was not. They acted as sort of demigods. If they ran a story, it became news. If they ignored an event, it never happened. Today editors are losing this power. The Internet, for example, provides access to thousands of new sources that cover things an editor might ignore. And if you aren’t satisfied with that, you can start up your own blog and cover and comment on the news yourself. Journalists like to think of themselves as watchdogs, but they haven’t always responded well when the public calls them to account.”
To make his point, Murdoch criticized the media reaction after bloggers debunked a “60 Minutes” report by former CBS anchor, Dan Rather, that President Bush had evaded service during his days in the National Guard.
“Far from celebrating this citizen journalism, the establishment media reacted defensively. During an appearance on Fox News, a CBS executive attacked the bloggers in a statement that will go down in the annals of arrogance. ‘60 Minutes,’ he said, was a professional organization with ‘multiple layers of checks and balances.’ By contrast, he dismissed the blogger as ‘a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.’ But eventually it was the guys sitting in their pajamas who forced Mr. Rather and his producer to resign.
“Mr. Rather and his defenders are not alone,” he continued. “A recent American study reported that many editors and reporters simply do not trust their readers to make good decisions. Let’s be clear about what this means. This is a polite way of saying that these editors and reporters think their readers are too stupid to think for themselves.”
Murdoch’s comments come at a time when the media landscape looks increasingly bleak both for print-based and online news organizations.
Whyputaname Says:
I hate to say it Murdoch is right to a degree.
Me, my love hate (more hate than love) relationship with the media is that the media is in bed with the politicians and to some extent the government. There is no objective reporting anymore, what I mean by that is there is more personal opinion than objective opinion. What is sad is that it pins people of different opinions against each other. Ex: Republican vs. Democrat.
Take the government for instance; during the first term of Bush Jr. and the supposed war on terrorism. All the reporting was basically coming out of the Whitehouse, whatever the Whitehouse said they reported it without investigating it first, without holding the Whitehouse accountable i.e. Asking the hard questions.
Then came the push for war in Iraq, come to find out back in late 2007 and the beginning of this year those Generals, Colonels, and so on (called Pentagon Pundits) were planted in the media to sell, promote, get the public to say it should be done to go to war. But because it was election year the story was headlines for a day or two and then squashed. CNN, Fox and MSNBC were the biggest culprits of them all. I remember when the President gave the OK for the troops to be dispatched to the Iraq. MSNBC had a bulletin board made so people could send family and friends pictures in to post on that board. What I find strange is that they don’t do it anymore, and it stopped about the time when they realize that the intelligence was wrong!
Now that we had to elect a new president, it seems that the war on Terrorism has been put on the back burner and that the security of this country no longer matters. The new Democratic nominee/president has a shady past, but does the media go and crawl all over his hometown looking for the dirt, asking the hard questions…no they don’t, they give him a free pass. But they waste no time on the VP on the Republican side, the moment that McCain announced Palin as VP they couldn’t get to Alaska fast enough to get some dirt on her. Then proceeded to vilify her through out the whole process.
When they realize that “they” made a mistake they fall all over themselves and don’t learn from it. They just go on and keep repeating the same mistake.
If Bush Jr. had an affair they would be all over it like fly’s to honey, thinking they are doing a good thing. But the important issues who wants to hear that, tabloid news that is what Fox, CNN, and MSNBC is!
Posted on November 18th, 2008 at 3:48 am
CrystalD Says:
The “MSM” has forsaken journalism and replaced it with admitted bias to elect their $600 million dollar man. After trading integrity for the common goal of electing the cipher candidate, they are sitting around watching their ratings drop. They now exist only when needed by their Messiah doh-bama to:
* Provide cover for doh-bamas mistakes
* Promote doh-bama policies
* Attack any doh-bama detractors
Posted on November 18th, 2008 at 2:15 pm