The Web didn’t just destroy print journalism, it destroyed broadcast journalism, too. Over the past 20 years, the likes of Google and Facebook have taken the advertising revenue that used to pay for quality journalism—and the people running the journalism business (including Murdoch) haven’t come up with a viable answer.
Instead, the media has become less focused and more desperate. More reactionary. More inclined to chase every click-bait story that will drive views. And journalists, seduced by the cardboard glamour of social media stardom and desperate to survive the hunger games of ever-shrinking newsrooms, have acted more and more like wannabe celebrities. And, in the maelstrom of the fourth estate’s existential crisis, the primacy of the yarn—the one thing the beetroot-faced journo pirates of the 1980s never lost sight of—has been lost.
Tag: Rupert Murdoch
“Kathryn and James’ views on climate are well established and their frustration with some of News Corp and Fox’s coverage of the topic is also well known,” a spokesperson for the couple told The Daily Beast, and later confirmed the statement’s accuracy to Reuters.
“They are particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial of the role of climate change among the news outlets in Australia, given obvious evidence to the contrary.”
And on Wednesday, Mr. Murdoch’s News Corp, the largest media company in Australia, was found to be part of another wave of misinformation. An independent study found online bots and trolls exaggerating the role of arson in the fires, at the same time that an article in The Australian making similar assertions became the most popular offering on the newspaper’s website.
It’s all part of what critics see as a relentless effort led by the powerful media outlet to do what it has also done in the United States and Britain — shift blame to the left, protect conservative leaders and divert attention from climate change.
For Rupert and his sons, the press has always been the prime weapon in their power-seeking agenda.
There are three key higher-order next steps, all of which are at the scale of the New Deal.
– Create a sustainable business structure for information intermediaries (like news organizations) that allows them to be profitable without the pressure of ROI.
– Actively and strategically rebuild the social networks of America.
– Find new ways of holding those who are struggling.