"First, media companies need to give people the news they want. I can't tell you
how many papers I have visited where they have a wall of journalism prizes -
and a rapidly declining circulation. This tells me the editors are producing
news for themselves - instead of news that is relevant to their customers. A
news organization's most important asset is the trust it has with its readers,
a bond that reflects the readers' confidence that editors are looking out for
their needs and interests."
- Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp, in his Wall
Street Journal of December 9.
Who better than Rupert Murdoch to tell us what is wrong with today's news
media? He should know, he runs much of it and, like his peers, he has a rapidly
declining circulation. In fact, he has done as much as, if not more than,
anybody to bring the news media to its present state, and he has achieved this
by
doing what he here recommends everyone else does: "Give people the news they
want" by "producing news" that is "relevant to their customers" and cements
"readers' confidence that editors are looking out for their needs and
interests".
There you have it, would-be media magnates of the world: if you want the same
declining circulation and revenue as Murdoch, whose combined news operations do
not make a profit, and have not for years, "produce news".
Never mind that this is an oxymoron - that the only way to produce news is by
making it up or making it happen, in which case it ceases to be news - and
forget the old-fashioned idea of actually covering news without twisting it to
conform with readers' alleged preferences.
And to readers, if you have a "need and interest" to believe that Saddam
Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, Rupert is your man. Tune into his Fox
News.
If you wish to hear that Iran is building nuclear weapons, Rupert is your man.
So too if you prefer to believe that an Iranian uranium processing plant near
Qom was discovered by the Americans, rather than revealed by the Iranians.
If you have a desperate need to be told that Iran is involved in Nazi-style
persecution of Jews, Rupert told you so in his New York Post a few years ago.
And if you really don't want to know that the story - about Tehran introducing
legislation to require Jews to wear distinctively colored badges - proved to be
false and was described by a former US intelligence official as a "real sign of
[a] disinformation operation", stick with Murdoch and don't read Asia Times
Online (See Yellow
journalism and chicken hawks May 24, 2006.) In fact, the writer of the
Jew story, Amir Taheri, beloved by the neo-cons as the "doyen" of anti-Iranian
propagandists, remains with Murdoch. In the December 9 issue of Murdoch's Wall
Street Journal, Taheri tells you that Iran is on the brink of a democratic
revolution. If that's what you want to hear, it must be true.
If you feel that life won't be worth living unless that walking PR stunt from
Alaska becomes president of the United States, trust Murdoch, he is looking out
for your interests and doing his utmost to make it happen by covering every
stiletto-shod step she takes, cleverly focusing on her ankles rather than her
mind ("Africa is a continent?").
More importantly, if you want to know how some starlet (she's a starlet because
Murdoch publications talk about her) feels about life after dyeing her hair
blonde, or if you want to know whose nipple "accidentally" emerged from her
bikini, Rupert is definitely your man.
The only dark spot on the horizon of readers who want to be lied to by Murdoch
because they trust him is that pretty soon they are going to have to pay for
the privilege. The man with the answer to the world's media problems
("answerable for" would perhaps be a better formulation) is pressing ahead with
his plan to build pay walls around all his priceless content. ATol has no
quibble with that: it can only be good for us. But we do hope that Rupert is
taught a hard and punishing lesson: that people only subscribe to his content
because it is free. Less Rupert can only be good for the globe.
But where is a reader to go if what he/she wants is news coverage, not some
editor's twisted conception of what he/she "wants" to hear? Reader, you are
there right now.
Allen Quicke is Editor of atimes.net.
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