June 29, 2007
Lucky and Nimble (and Willing to Take a Risk)
Rupert Murdoch Speaks, by Eric Pooley
Some selected excerpts:
“I love being called [a visionary for buying MySpace], but the truth is, I’m just lucky and nimble.”
Today the notion of this tabloid terror controlling the world’s leading business journal is being met with ferocious opposition in many quarters of the American media. Some of the opposition is principled, some of it is sanctimonious, and some of it seems driven by a tangle of ideological and commercial motives. Each day brings another investigative story about Murdoch using his media properties to boost his business interests, reward his friends and punish his rivals, and each story carries the message that this man will destroy the Journal by using its hugely respected news pages as his personal fief.
“When you’re a catalyst for change, you make enemies — and I’m proud of the ones I’ve got.”
Murdoch has invested billions in newspapers when few others were willing, but he has also kept them alive through a lowest-common denominator approach typified by the trashy Sun, with its topless Page 3 girls on the breakfast tables of a million Britons. Murdoch wouldn’t be Murdoch if he didn’t love sticking it to sanctimonious J-school toffs.
Murdoch isn’t a party-line guy. He’s a pragmatist. He likes strong politicians and change agents and winners; in recent years he has supported moderates like Tony Blair and Hillary Clinton. But he has a stubborn populist streak, and his populism finds an outlet on Fox News, a channel that gives voice to angry middle-aged white guys.
“What if, at the Journal, we spent $100 million a year hiring all the best business journalists in the world? Say 200 of them. And spent some money on establishing the brand but went global — a great, great newspaper with big, iconic names, outstanding writers, reporters, experts. And then you make it free, online only. No printing plants, no paper, no trucks. How long would it take for the advertising to come? It would be successful, it would work and you’d make … a little bit of money. Then again, the Journal and the Times make very little money now.”
“A media company is basically anything that communicates with people — news, ideas, entertainment, advertising — and allows them to communicate with each other. But the Internet is teaching people every day to expect everything for free. So it has to be advertising supported.”
Murdoch better make wsj.com free by the end of the year because I don’t plan to renew my subscription when it lapses.
June 29th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
in the latest issue of wired, fox news viewers are the least informed in this group - people who read/watch: (major paper websites, dailyshow/colbert report, npr, news mags, news from other portals, cnn, daily newspapers, news blogs, network evening news, fox news).
the questions: could name vladimir putin, could name the sunni branch of islam, could identify scooter libby
June 29th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Paul Krugman writes in the NY TIMES today (sub required):
“In any case, do we want to see one of America’s two serious national newspapers in the hands of a man who has done so much to mislead so many?
.
.
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If Mr. Murdoch does acquire The Journal, it will be a dark day for America’s news media — and American democracy. If there were any justice in the world, Mr. Murdoch, who did more than anyone in the news business to mislead this country into an unjustified, disastrous war, would be a discredited outcast. Instead, he’s expanding his empire. ”
Amen, brother.
June 29th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
good u can shift over to the NYT selling at a 52 week low, with increasinly lower subscription membership.. they need u mao
June 29th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
@bob: I can identify Vladimir “Sunni” Libby, no problem.
@Mr. X: Well, the WSJ editorial page is egregious already so Murdoch can’t make it any worse, and he promises not to meddle with the news pages.
@adam: I’m registered at NYTimes.com but I’d never subscribe and I haven’t bought a dead tree paper in years. In the Bloomberg age, the WSJ is almost completely irrelevant for delivering news to professional investors and traders. Every 60 days I renew my limit order to buy NYT… at $12.
June 30th, 2007 at 4:25 am
egregious………………oh please. heaven forbid we have a newspaper about markets that is market friendly.
June 30th, 2007 at 8:38 am
chad: One can be market friendly without being retarded.
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:11 pm
FoxNews would be laughable if not for the fact that some “ill-informed” folk actually think it’s a legitimate news outlet which actually makes it scary.