Murdoch on What Troubles Journalism [Kevin D. Williamson]
It's not the newspapers, says Rupert Murdoch, it's the people who run them:
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.
Amen on the "complacency and condescension." This is a familiar story to Media Blog readers. The first time I heard a newspaper colleague refer to non-journalists as "civilians," it was obvious that something is wrong with the culture of the news media. And the more reporters and editors think of themselves as a specialized elite with access to esoteric knowledge, the worse the problem will get.
11/17 11:21 AM
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