Rupert Murdoch to Internet: It’s War!

[jus_the_facts]

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2009/11/michael-wolff-200911

Vanity Fair

2009-10-06

War is Rupert Murdoch’s natural state. When he launched the Fox Broadcasting Company, in October 1986, he went to war against the hegemony of CBS, ABC, and NBC. With Fox News he crossed swords with CNN’s Ted Turner. At Sky, his satellite-TV system in the U.K., he went up against the BBC. He’s battled China, the F.C.C., the print unions in Great Britain, and, recently, most of the journalism community in his takeover of The Wall Street Journal. He relishes conflict and doesn’t back down—one reason why he’s won so many of his fights and so profoundly changed the nature of his industry.

Now he’s going to war with the Internet.


It hasn’t been a good year for Murdoch—the largest publisher of newspapers in the worst year in newspaper history. His purchase of The Wall Street Journal is widely seen as one of the worst moves of his career—News Corp. has already taken a $3 billion write-down on the purchase. His beloved New York Post, always a money loser for him, is now suffering such great losses that Murdoch is considering a partnership with or even sale to the Daily News, the Post’s arch-enemy. His once highly profitable newspaper groups in the U.K. and Australia are faltering. News Corp.’s share price has been among the hardest hit of any major media company.

And yet, Murdoch, at 78, would double-down in a heartbeat: he strategizes constantly about how he might buy The New York Times. But first he might have to save the newspaper business itself. As it happens, he, unlike almost everyone else in the business, believes newspapers are suffering not at the hands of technological forces beyond their control but at the hands of proprietors who are weaker than he is.

[ShortnFiery]

1. Screw Murdoch. Ignore the Ministry of Freedom. eom

[Echo In Light]

2. His name even sounds like a comic book arch villain

[Xipe Totec]

3. Bring it on, punk. n/t

[AspenRose]

4. Bring it, asshole.

[KansDem]

5. Bring it on, asshole punk...

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Sounds Like Don Quixote

Um, Rupert; that's not a dragon, it's a windmill. There is not only no victory to be had. There's no real battle. The enemy is in your tiny mind.
GAC

[47of74]

7. Arrr Matey!

[havocmom]

8. Murdoch making same error as too many generals through history:

Fighting the LAST war today.

Thinkin' his methods are a tad out of sync with today's technology. If he thinks newspaper owners' errors are to blame, instead of the fact that technology has marched past print for daily news, he is one of those owners making a big error. And if it is the owners' fault, how does he explain his own recent problems?

Rupert Murdoch: going to war with catapults against smart bombs

[Kalyke]

9. Hey, Rupie. People aren't buying newspapers because you have

ushered in an era in which reporters no longer report the news - they give opinion as fact, spin and play the mighty corporate Wurlizer to keep the wealthy in the catbird seats while the proletariate are kept in the dark about exactly what is happening to them.

Therefore, educated Americans - i.e. people who would be a newspaper (not to be confused with an right-wing opinion rag) - are forced to go ONLINE to read news about America from journalists in other countries.

You, Rupie, are the problem - not the newspaper business.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

11. The newspaper biz is dying, with or without Murdoch. Their business model is toast

A new one needs to form or we will lose the major news organizations.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

10. Mixed feelings here. The newspaper biz in in the toilet, hardcopy and online

A stimulus for them may be coming but I am against for the same reason we did not subsidize the buggy whip industry when cars became the dominant means of transportation. Sometime you just have to let old business models die.

However, there is also a clear need for large scale news organizations with some reputation for integrity. Otherwise we end up with the Washington Times in every city. TV news is an example of the decline of "free" news, and yet free content on the web is everyone's ideal.

Somehow we need to find a way for news organizations to be of high quality and yet affordable and sometime even free content. The answer clearly is not here yet.

For those jeering Murdoch, remember that what hurts him, may kill your home town paper.

[Kalyke]

12. People like Murdoch are what is killing home-town newspapers.

Big corporations who have no idea how to run a decent newspaper are gobbling up the smaller papers and turning them into rags by cutting the number of investigative reporters and by allowing only the corporate viewpoint. Who wants to read that - online or hardcopy?

If newspapers were still owned locally or regionally, the decision to print a smaller number of hard copies and push toward providing better online content would have been done years ago. And, people would read it if the stories were of worth to their average American lives.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

14. That is not what the market is seeing. Online free content is killing their main revenue, ads

Outside of supermarkets and chain stores, the ad content is dropping like a stone. There were always freebie (Pennysaver being an example) ad rags, but today between Ebay and Craig's List, the classifieds are empty. Papers have to pay employees. Their costs are climbing and their revenue is declining along with their readership.

Its been weeks since I bought a paper. However, I read/skim several online most days, some of which are intenational. How many other DUers are in a similar position?

[Kalyke]

17. I think advertising is down everywhere.

And online advertising is much cheaper than hard-copy advertising; therefore, companies are still buying ads, but for less, which does dip into the profits.

However, being a former newspaper reporter, I can attest to the fact that content is also resulting in a drop of readership, which causes a drop in advertising.

There is no longer any investigative reporting, particularly locally, and most of the content is pablum.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

19. Profit? Name a paper making a profit these day

Its not loss of profits, its a loss of revenue. Few if any papers are operating in the black these day. Most have operating losses before debt servicing.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

13. As "bad ass" as Murdoch might be. My money's (no pun intended) on the internets. nt

[ProgressiveProfessor]

15. How do you expect the company who has the reporters etc to pay for themselves

to put it on the internet? The key issue is lack of revenue.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

16. Magic. nt

[Orsino]

18. A $3 bn "loss' in acquiring the WSJ is not a loss for Murdoch.

It's just another step toward establishing his will as law.