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• •
Google Thinks
Like TVIMagazine, and the Wall Street Journal
• • There are transcripts available, though, of the speech that Murdoch gave at the annual convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, D. C. In it, he warned editors that the traditional medial are making a big mistake if they look on the Internet only as a competitor -- as the digital-age equivalent of radio and television. • • As Rupert Murdoch reminded an audience of newspaper editors at their annual convention earlier this month, four out of five Americans read a newspaper regularly in 1964, compared with only half today. And according to a Carnegie Corp. study cited by Murdoch, among the sacred demographic of 18- to 34-year-olds, only 19% turn to a newspaper on a daily basis, compared with the 44% who rely on a Web portal for news. • • The Internet as a provide of news is "a revolution," he said, and newspapers in particular have been "slow to react" to that "fast-developing reality." • • Newspaper editors should look on the Internet as a potential partner and should grasp it a as "a huge opportunity to improve our journalism and expand our reach," Murdoch aid. • • Most newspapers have Web sites, but "how man of us can honestly say that we are taking maximum advantage of those Web sites to serve our readers, strengthen our businesses or meet head-on-what readers increasingly say is important to them in receiving their news?" Murdoch asked. • • Newspapers, he said, are "uniquely positioned to deliver that news. We have the experience, the brand, the resources and the know-how to get it done." The challenge for newspapers, Murdoch said, to figure out how to deliver the news in ways that today's young consumers want it. • • Murdoch cited a new report by the Carnegie Corp. on the changing news consumption habits of the nations's young people and what this means for the future of the news industry. • • The Carnegie report also spoke of a "revolution" in the news business and said that 44 % of 18-to 34-year-olds go to the Internet at least once a day to get news updates. Only 19% said newspapers are their primary source of current information. • • Newspaper circulation has been declining for more than 30 years, and the Internet has accelerated that decline, especially among the young. The Internet provides new and more varied ways to get the news, and tat's why it appeals to the young, Murdoch said. • • The young "want the option to go out and get more information," he said -- hence the popularity of links on the Web. "They want to be able to use the information in a larger community -- to talk about, to debate, to question" -- hence the popularity of chat rooms, bulletin boards, instant messaging, blogs and a host of other Interne features. • • The new generation of news-seekers also wants its news "on demand," Murdoch said. Newspapers can provide that by frequently updating their Web sites. But the implementation -- and the implications - of some of Murdoch's other observations worry me. He says young news-seekers want " point of view about not just what happened but why it happened." • • If that point of view" is evenhanded analysis, we all benefit. It it's opinion masquerading as news, as one sometimes sees on Fox News, it helps no one. • • Murdoch Also says the young "want news that speaks to them personally, that affects their lives. • • True -- and not just the young. But local TV stations have tried this "news you can use" approach for years, and it has largely trivialized or replaced real news in many cities. • • Not all news, can (or should) be personal, instant useful to everyone. There is some information that every citizen should be familiar with, its immediate nonutility notwithstanding. • • We might all have better understood what led to the Sept. 112 terrorist attacks, for example, if most news organization -- the television networks in particular -- hadn't cut back so much for so long on their international coverage and had spent more time examining the Arab world and less on Michael Jackson and Princess Di. • • Murdoch didn't pretend in his speech to be "an expert with all the answers" to the problems posed by the paradigmatic shift in the nation's news-consuming habits. Instead, he said his "searching for answers to an emerging medium that is not my native language. • • Newspaper editors would be well advised to join him in the quest, just as journalists everywhere would be well advised to consider Roves' comments about their knee-jerk adversary opposition to those in power - (For a free copy of the full Murdoch's speech, click to here to see http://www.newscorp.com/news/news_247.html.) • • Even nimble bloggers (and I am happy to count them as journalists, as I don't consider ours an exclusive guild) are eating our lunch, especially in my niche of opinion journalism. Still, much of the angst here at the corner of 1st and Spring is overdone. Newspapers are undoubtedly in for a period of wrenching change, especially in terms of how the product will be delivered. But we are hardly the equivalent of horse-drawn-buggy manufacturers at the dawn of the automobile era. That's because our core product -- thoroughly reported, reliable information -- has never been more valuable. • • Take those Internet portals. Yahoo is worth almost $50 billion; Google's market capitalization is an astonishing $60 billion. And yet, for all their revolutionary and transformative power as information hubs, these companies have not reinvented the news business. Go to Yahoo's home page and the prominently featured news items are mostly wire stories from such sources as the Associated Press and Reuters. How retro. The point-and-click world still depends on us old-fashioned news types for indispensable content. • • I don't mean to suggest that all worthy journalism comes from the establishment media, but even a nation of 300 million bloggers would need costly news organizations to break stories like the prison abuse scandals in Iraq or to develop investigative series like the one on King/Drew that earned this paper a Pulitzer. The Internet will increasingly empower consumers to control and interact with their news, to the point of becoming their own portal's editor in chief. Maybe you'll take your entertainment news from the Los Angeles Times, bundled with five industry blogs; or perhaps you'll want your "front page" to be the latest from the Mexico City bureau. • • Newspapers have been agonizing about the degree to which they will control this revolution via their own websites, and with good reason. In the digital world, the Yahoos and Googles have built brands that eclipse those of the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. As Murdoch put it in his speech last month, we are digital immigrants and they are the digital natives. But like Murdoch, I remain optimistic that there is a great deal of opportunity in this migration, even if newspaper types in the long run lose direct control over the distribution of our product, much as movie studios did when they had to divest their theater chains. Our content, like the studios', will remain valuable on other distribution channels. • • It's only a matter of time before a Yahoo or a Google decides to buy an old media company,like Television International Magazine, founded by Sam Doneldson in 1956, in order to differentiate itself by offering high-quality, proprietary news, it's only the smart way to do business. Or a company like Amazon could buy a prestigious newspaper publisher and reinvent itself as a portal, leapfrogging over those that treat news updates as a commodity. • • The L.A. Times' owner, Tribune Co., can probably be had for about $15 billion, if anyone is interested. Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, is a steal these days, with a market capitalization below $3 billion. Google's value often fluctuates by that amount in one day of trading. It would be a real coup for any digital native to position itself as the only online provider of the WSJ. • • Things could get even more interesting if the buyer took the next logical step and abandoned the print edition altogether. But as a member of the Politburo, I'm afraid I am getting a little too far ahead of myself here. /// More Articles • Converging News 182005 / TeleCom Buy Outs and Asset Seizure Boom Respectfully
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