If you ever wondered how Rupert Murdoch became the media giant he is — how his thought processes worked to analyze and try to anticipate every development — you must read his speech peppered with warnings to newspaper editors.
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch urged newspaper editors to grab on to the digital revolution, stop fearing or ignoring the power of the Web, and do more to serve the young news consumers — or “digital natives,” as he called them — who are more and more going to the Internet for information.
“We need to realize that the next generation of people have a different set of expectations of the kind of news they will get,” Murdoch told a luncheon crowd at the American Society of Newspaper Editors conference on Wednesday, “including when and how they will get it, and who they will get it from.”
Citing a list of statistics that show fewer people are reading print newspapers but more are on the Web, Murdoch told the assembled hundreds of editors that online news reporting should be embraced, not feared. Sporting a gray tie, dark suit, and glasses, Murdoch noted that 44% of news consumers between 18 and 34 use the Internet once a day for news, compared to 19% who use a printed newspapers. In the future, he said, 39% expected to use the Internet more, compared to 8% who expected to use newspapers more. He also said only 9% describe newspapers as trustworthy, 8% as useful, and 4 % as entertaining
“Four out of every five Americans in 1964 read a newspaper every day; today only half do,” the News Corporation chairman said. “In the face of this revolution, we have been slow to react. We have sat by and watched while our newspapers have lost circulation.”
If you’re still not convinced that he “gets” what a lot of newspaper publishers still don’t, read THESE paragraphs:
“Scarcely a day goes by that someone does not claim that technology writes newspapers’ obituary,” Murdoch observed. “I didn’t do as much as I should have after all the [Internet] excitement of the late 1990s. I thought this thing called the digital revolution would just limp along. Well, it hasn’t. It is a fast-developing reality that we should grasp to improve our journalism and expand our reach.”
“I come to this discussion not as an expert, but as someone who is searching for answers,” he added. “I’m a digital immigrant. I wasn’t weaned on the Web or coddled on a computer. My two young daughters, however, are digital natives.”
In other words: in many ways he he has been ahead of the curve in terms of building a “synergistic” media empire, the use of cutting-edge communications technologies, and news delivery printed and broadcast packages that appeal to both broad and specifically segmented audiences…but he admits that if he had only been a mite more forward-thinking, he would have taken full advantage of the web, too.
And he’s urging newspaper editors to be forward looking. Will it happen? Or will it be the same ‘ol same ‘ol as newspaper circulation figures continue to fall or stagnate?
Read Jeff Jarvis’ superb (as always) analysis here (he helped someone who wrote the speech). If we paraphrase it, we’ll ruin it…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.