Rupert Murdoch - Media Needs To Reinvent Up In Here

CNET NEWS reports that Mr. Murdoch is accusing the media of digging themselves into a hole.

The media mogul accuses some traditional media leadership of "complacency and condescension." It is his opinion that newspapers are NOT going to become obsolete. Instead it's the "...editors, reporters, and proprietors who are forgetting a newspaper's most precious asset: the bond with its readers..."

With more and more content available online, I am having a hard time agreeing with his assessment but he does make some interesting arguments.

"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."

He reinforced this by citing the famous Dan Rather incident when bloggers assassinated the story of Bush's National Guard service in 2004.

Rupert refers to "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."

All that being said, I still think that even if you removed all the "offending people", we will still see declines in circulation and ad revenue. If Murdoch was sitting here in my office, I would tell him he is underestimating the power of online news and the increasing potential return for online advertising.

"Murdoch said newspapers can still count on circulation gains if papers provide readers with news they can trust." He added they will also need to embrace technology advances like RSS feeds and targeted e-mails. The challenge, according to Murdoch, will be to use a newspaper's brand while allowing readers to personalize the news for themselves-and then deliver it in the ways that they want."

RSS feeds, customized home pages, email? Hello? Is this thing on? This is already happening. This is exactly why 8-track tapes the printed form of the newspaper is soon going to be a memory.