Murdoch's strange love of newspapers
Posted February 4th, 2010 by debritz
"How Rupert quit worrying and learned to love the iPad" is the title of this opinion piece by the ABC's Media Watch host, Johnathan Holmes. He says the big issue in media this year "will be whether the so-called heritage media - and especially those substantial bits of it owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation - will start charging for content online, and if so, how". But, as Holmes points out, when Apple boss Steve Jobs launched the iPad, it was with an app designed for the New York Times, not part of the Murdoch empire - although News Corp was very quick subsequently to jump on the iPad bandwagon. Drawing on Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff, Holmes argues that Murdoch's apparent strategy is flawed. News Corp, he says, wants to sell an electronic newspaper compiled by his journalists and editors to an audience that has already become too used to setting its own news agenda. And, of course, he wants to sell news to people who are accustomed to getting it for free. I guess the question is, will Murdoch - who has survived and prospered longer in the cut-throat media world than anybody in modern times - prevail again, or will he ride that bomb towards extinction?
