Rupert Murdoch announces the end of newspapers as we know them
Here are some quotes from a paid only (be linkable, Economist, or die) Economist.com article:
"I BELIEVE too many of us editors and reporters are out of touch with our readers," Rupert Murdoch, the boss of News Corporation, one of the world's largest media companies, told the American Society of Newspaper Editors last week. No wonder that people, and in particular the young, are ditching their newspapers. Today's teens, twenty- and thirty-somethings "don't want to rely on a god-like figure from above to tell them what's important," Mr Murdoch said, "and they certainly don't want news presented as gospel." And yet, he went on, "as an industry, many of us have been remarkably, unaccountably, complacent."
"Mr Murdoch said that news "providers" such as his own organisation had better get web-savvy, stop lecturing their audiences, "become places for conversation" and "destinations" where bloggers" and "podcasters" congregate to "engage our reporters and editors in more extended discussions." He also criticised editors and reporters who often "think their readers are stupid".
"In 1995-2003, says the World Association of Newspapers, circulation fell by 5% in America, 3% in Europe and 2% in Japan. In the 1960s, four out of five Americans read a paper every day; today only half do so. Philip Meyer, author of "The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age" (University of Missouri Press), says that if the trend continues, the last newspaper reader will recycle his final paper copy in April 2040."
Announcing the end of the press as we know it is not really new, what's new is that it is Rupert Murdoch himseld announcing it...
