Slashdot Mirror
Rupert Murdoch Plans a Digital Newspaper For the US
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that Rupert Murdoch plans to launch a digital newspaper in the US geared specifically to younger readers and to digital outlets such as the iPad and mobile phones. The paper, as yet unnamed, will pool the huge editorial muscle of Murdoch's combined holdings within News Corporation, which include the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and the financial wire service Dow Jones, as well as his newspapers in the UK and Australia. Earlier this month, Murdoch said of the iPad: 'It's a real game-changer in the presentation of news,' adding 'We'll have young people reading newspapers.'"
Rupert Murdoch: Dragging us into the 20th century.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
I didn't know Murdoch could spell digital!
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
"We'll have young people reading newspapers."
Not till you tear down that Pay wall, Mr. Murdoch.
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
I hope this venture is just as successful as Rupert Murdoch's purchase of MySpace, the internet's abandoned amusement park.
Check out the youthful demographics Fox News attracts...
And he's sure to only increase the popularity of his empire with our generation as he attempts to sue Skype for having the same three letters in it as his other news organization that nobody under 25 has heard of.
now the teabaggers can get their hate news and misinformation in print format when they are out and about
Does Fox News, BTW, ever cover the fact that Murdoch is married to a former member of the Chinese Communist Party?
There's no mention of the subscription cost and, judging by Rupert's past comments & actions, I'm sure there'll be a cost associated with it.
raise your hand. What, no one can hear me? IF YOU THINK THIS WILL WORK, RAISE YOUR HAND! Is this thing on?
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Good idea:
For the people who can read newspapers, there's the full story loaded with factual detail.
For the rest, there's a blog-style two-paragraph campy tongue-in-cheek story that's easy to read.
He can charge money for the real content, then have his editorial staff of college hipsters convert it into a blog for $8/hour.
Smart, this guy -- he's good at spotting markets and catering to them. I doubt he holds any of the opinions featured in his newspapers.
Futurist Traditionalism
Still not going to pay for it. Nice try old man.
Murdoch said of the iPad: 'It's a real game-changer in the presentation of news,'
Hmm, sure, yes, the thing has something like a screen. Actually it is a screen. That would allow us to add those new thingies the PR guys talked about all the time. I think they call it "animations". And we could change those news during the day, not like this old printed stuff, with only one print a day. Sure, people would have to pay for it a little bit more, since they get more news. But those kids a surely used to pay for services they get from the internet...
Murdoch is in a tough spot. The internet has given us access to nearly every piece of content that has ever been created, or is currently being created, in near real-time. In addition, automated editing tools are improving by leaps and bounds every year, with recent apps like Flipboard (and others), obviating the need for professional human editors.
So it's difficult to see how this slight re-working of an old model is going to work in a world where the game has changed in such fundamental ways.
The paywall pretty much guarantees failure. Young people generally have a long list of things above "news" on which they choose to spend their small amount of disposable income. I applaud his astounding failure in advance.
Instant name recognition.
we know what kind of 'news' we can expect from the US 'news' channels.
at one point, MANY years ago, CNN used to be a news channel. they have had significant bias for well over a decade, now. fox, the opposite bias.
we cannot get unbiased news from any single source. but the News Machine(tm) is just that, single sourced.
kids today pretty much know this. everyone now gets their news from various sources; the more varied, the better.
game's up, big news ceo. your kind is gonna vanish, perhaps even during your own lifetime. deal with it, gracefully, if you can.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
where's the "goodluckwiththat" and the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tags?
If Murdock does what he did in the UK....it's gonna flop badly....still....I'd rather not see people pay for moronic [sarcasm]"fair and balance"[/sarcasm] news....shoot...I think I need to put quotes around the word "news"...and add an asterisk...the lil' cross thingie...perhaps superscripts of the first 500 prime numbers....etc. for the fine-print (no pun).
He expects people to pay for his mind numbing biassed reporting? Nope. Don't think so.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
According to the LA Times, it will publish customised content that will be tailored both to the digital medium and the tastes of the target readership. Stories will be short and snappy, the Times's source said.
As a young person (does 26 still count as young?), I find the whole premise insulting to my intelligence. The internet is full of short, snappy, and FREE content. Why would I want to pay for more crap? For me to consider paying for an online publication, it would have to be informative, and probably confined to a niche in which I have a strong personal or professional interest.
I predict failure of epic proportions.
Young people don't read newspapers. Not in the way Murdoch's thinking, at least. They don't start on page 1 and read through to the end. And they don't compile a list of subjects and read consistently on those subjects for months at a time. They get a sudden interest in a particular subject, search for stories about that specific subject right now, skim them and maybe read a few of the most interesting ones, then go on to other things until another subject piques their interest. This is why Google's so popular: it makes it easy to do exactly that. If Murdoch doesn't accept that, he's simply going to be passed over yet again.
I prefer he keeps his pay walls! Also, I'd rather have people not give him good advice. I'd rather he do what he wants and eff himself!
That's kind of like claiming that a desert and an ocean both have some amount of water in them.
While technically accurate, it does nothing to advance the discussion.
Some sites (such as Fox) are 100% bias. But if you are watching Fox for "news" then you are probably not interested in sites that provide only 50% bias.
CNN will provide a low level of bias ... when they get around to covering the NEWS instead of the "freak of the week". Seriously, was the airplane steward guy the MOST IMPORTANT THING HAPPENING? It was if you go by total coverage time.
Instead of complaining about bias (and doing so in a non-productive fashion) how about complaining about having to go digging for NEWS? And offering suggestions as to how to find NEWS stories instead of "biased opinion" or "freak of the week"?
oh boy! just what we need. a watering down of already approved pre-watered down news.
saying it in less words always conveys the complexity of the issue. uhuh.
then again, maybe he's right. maybe no one wants to read anything 'heady' anymore. fox IS still in business, you know.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Kids are too smart to read newspapers.
America, and most places that have money, are running out of young people.
Demographics means more people, and more people with money, will be older. Given the birth-rate collapse in the West, Europe, Japan, Coastal China, and America. In the US, the only folks having kids in large numbers are illegal aliens (8% of all US births). Those people are poor, Spanish speaking, and not good potential customers of news/ads. Mexicans astonishingly remain Mexicans even when the cross the border, they don't magically become wealthy White folks interested in news.
Japan and Italy's TFR is 1.1, replacement rate is basically 2.1. Coastal China is not much better. Having lots of kids requires basically, women/girls getting pregnant in their mid teens, and continuing until fertility radically declines in the late 30's. This model allows lots of kids, but trades off wealth/education, etc. and perpetuates poverty.
Murdoch is not interested in, nor should he, in the masses of illegal alien kids (who *WILL* get deported eventually in a "lifeboat" welfare-state as Western economies collapse and naked spoils fights over spending/welfare break out) nor the tiny amount of designer eugenic yuppie babies currently growing up. He's after the ever smaller amount of folks with jobs and money -- basically mid thirties and up, the folks who have given up on print outside the Journal because of lack of local and national news.
"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed." -- Mark Twain
Not only that, I would imagine the way this information is used is completely different: it is so easy to save a webpage, to copy and paste text or images, to keep a folder of interesting text snippets in apps like Evernote, annotated by you, to share stuff by email. Somehow I don't think any information behind a paywall will allow that kind of multifaceted usage - it's very telling that he is focusing on the most locked-down platform there are. Who wants to bet that this will be another attempt at nickel-and-diming the customers (basic membership allows viewing articles, advanced allows for printing of up to two articles, professional enables copy&paste with mandatory attribution etc.)?
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
Because you get people who KNOW the material that they are covering.
They may be over estimating the importance of what they cover, but they KNOW what they're covering.
Compare that to the "news readers" on the other news shows. Could they even find the countries they're talking about on a map? Or in the USofA, can they find the state they're talking about on a map? There are some good ones but the majority were hired because they're "photogenic" rather than informed.
I'll take informed over photogenic any day.
Not unless you hire editors who can make them politically correct. Hint: repackaging Fox News won't work.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The Daily Show is great. But they only have time to cover a few items (and those are chosen for humour value anyway).
And when Left and Right "discuss" things online, all I see are opposing, uninformed biases. Not much in the way of information or insight.
I look for newspapers in Germany, the Mid-East and other places. Once you step away from US political biases you get better news.
Inside the USofA, look for any indie sites that focus on a specific issue.
And how is it different from a web site? Doesn't News Corporation already have several "newsy" web sites? Why is their plan to launch another one at all innovative or newsworthy?
I might be interested in them again.
All news is hideously biased now. Left or right.. all pro-corporation.
A lot of the pieces are filmed or written by the corporations and then handed to the news organizations (just like they write laws and hand them to congress).
I'm just going to coast out my last 25 years on the planet unless things change.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I'm not sure that's a good business move; he'd be competing directly with the well-established Onion.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
it might be too late for Rupert Murdoch and his media pals. I find it hard to believe that with all the talent that these multimedia companies have, they did not see how the internet was going to change their business model. Or did they just ignore the facts.
http://weboven.blogspot.com
Murdoch's product is best suited for housebreaking puppies or wrapping fish. Neither of which work well with an iPad.
Have gnu, will travel.
professional journalism, in the mainstream, died decades ago.
And if your definition of professional journalism is "unbiased writing", then it never existed in the first place.
Too many people believe in this mythical golden age of journalism, when all reporters were unbiased and pure of heart.
Which is bunk, because it never existed. Pulitzer prize winning reporters for the NY Times were nothing but flacks for Joseph Stalin (especially Walter Duranty). Walter Cronkite reported that America couldn't win in Vietnam on the eve was what was the biggest military victory for the US in the war. Had Dan Rather not gotten caught, he'd still be anchor at CBS today.
Reporters have had bias as long as there have been reporters.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
raise your hand. What, no one can hear me? IF YOU THINK THIS WILL WORK, RAISE YOUR HAND! Is this thing on?
If he can develop an audience, then it'll work. Period. I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal.... in other words, I pay for my news because I think it's a better product than its competitors.
If a commercial product is worth your time, then its worth your money.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Off topic? WTF? It's a joke, you putz, unless you're some arrogant xenophobic American asshole. No wonder America is crashing down around its own ears and everyone hates you. Grow a sense of humour, okay?
Rupert Murdoch appears to be the AOL of news media. It's a miracle he's still in business.
Checking out the demographics for Fox News, as of today August 14th 2010:
Watching cable news is not for the young. A new Nielsen survey shows Fox News has the oldest audience, averaging 65 years of age. CNN was right behind Fox, with a median audience age of 63, followed by MSNBC (59) and CNBC (52). The same survey showed that those who tune into network programming tend to be middle-aged, with CBS’ median viewership being 55 last season. ABC’s audience came in at 51 and NBC at 49. Fox’s network audience, helped by such programming as its animated comedy block, has a median primetime viewer age of 44. The youngest of the networks is CW at 33, which is not surprising since its target audience is women aged 18-34.
That's right folks, the average age of a Fox News viewer is 65 years old. Please, downmod Spaznwich as he obviously hasn't checked the "youthful demographics" at all.
I wasn't the person who modded you down so I can't say for certain... but from my perspective it appears that you were modded down for making a bad (as in not clever or funny) joke rather than for any political opinion you have have expressed.
Except us "younger" readers know two things. 1) "Reading" on the internet makes our heads hurt. 2) Us "younger" readers know Rupert is a "douche".
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
Speaking as a relatively young person, I believe I speak for most of us when I say "lol."
I'm assuming he means people in the roughly 16-25 range because most people start caring about that sort of thing as they grow older regardless of iPad intervention. Apparently he grossly misunderstands what makes something cool. Introducing something relatively boring to a younger person to a platform that the younger person uses is virtually worthless for the interest factor of the relatively boring something. In simpler terms: Having an iPad application for whatever doesn't make whatever cool.
The only thing I'd be afraid of is what the response to the inevitable failure will be. I'm guessing that he isn't going to look inward for the blame...
Maybe but it's put Americans on my shit list again. It ruined the Star Trek episode I was watching as I can't stand looking at an American right now. No it's not just one thing. That crybaby routine over 9/11 and xenophobia over BP really pisses me off. Buncha uptight puritanicals are as bad as the bloody Arabs.
...... Because it was such a great success elsewhere.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Here's a brief rundown of what I think he's been trying to achieve with all the noise over the past three years. He's pushing hard to have government run media sites (eg. BBC) cut back (with some success) and pushing hard to have index sites like google tied up in court after weird new IP laws are drafted. That will leave nothing but blogs and his paywall sites. He can play this game since he doesn't really have anything to lose with his newspapers - they already bleed money.
I suppose the business model is:
talk to governments about IP laws and brang google as pirates, then take the money google would normally get.
The Murdoch press and media already had a HUGE beatup over google collecting wifi information and had some success in changing public and government opinions about google. He's also been speaking everywhere he can get anyone to listen about how the net is a denizen of theives and we should all be restricted to paid content or jobs will be lost - or something along those lines, check your local Murdoch paper for details. He has more influence than anyone here would like, understands the net more than many here (he had an ISP in 1993 FFS and has always listened to experts) but doesn't care if he breaks it so long as he can get money from the pieces.
The only thing you should be getting from fark.com is a 404.
There is only really one existing "free market" and that is the "black" market..in anything. Very successful, despite a lot of effort to try and eliminate it. Pick a goods or service demand which has to be met in the "black" market because it is "illegal" otherwise..and it is over all successful, and there is usually a lot of competition, and even if some of the "marketeers" try to eliminate their competition, that usually fails in general terms.
All other markets are regulated in some form or another and can't be classified as free markets.
Just an observation, not making a judgment call on anyone's business.
i don't trust rupert murdoch to provide news, but perhaps he'll help create funny jokes for the daily show and the colbert report.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
slashdot only upmods retarded made-up-statistics without any sources
that everyone who links to its articles is "stealing content"?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
'We'll have young people reading newspapers.'
Riiiiight, and Rupert will give up on charging for newspaper/online subscriptions. Don't kid yourself.
We have this futuristic "digital" news he speaks of - I call it "CNN.com".
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
I suppose "younger readers" can go on the list with "military intelligence", "plastic silverware" and "Microsoft Works".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And he acts surprised that young people don't read newspapers! Most people don't like supporting businesses that insult them. Imagine what would happen if he had said "we'll have black people reading newspapers"!
re: the death of journalism
I live in the UK and listen to Radio 4 several hours a day. Almost every expert is someone with a book out. Even the BBC is not immune.
If the US is anything like the UK, the median income of WSJ readers is something like 5 times the national average, and it speaks to a group for whom money is the measure of everything. I imagine you pay for the WSJ because you believe that reading it will increase your income by far more than it costs you. What services will Murdoch develop that a mass readership will pay for?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Rupert Murdoch just looks at everything as being like the past. Newspapers were once the state of the art. They gave us a bunch of things to read across a set of categories (news, sport, finance, health, cartoons) to read, but they're just not up there with the net where people can pick and mix. I don't need XKCD bundled in with things. It's just there. I can flip to it as fast as turning a page. Which is why the future of the media is in specialised writing, not newspapers.
Look at how many millions are made selling bottled water. Just because there is a free option that is better, does not mean a product cannot be sold. If you advertise heavily enough, an inferior product that costs a lot can be very successful. Most iphone apps and conventional computer software programs that are sold have a free alternative that is just as good. For one thing, people are very bad at knowing what their options are, and also if you advertise and tell people something is good, many will believe it.
For comparison, this is what life would be like without Murdoch.
he might be old but not stupid. Him and all sorts of other geezers will find a way to censor Internet. He's clearly biased against regular people. I'm biased pro people if you can call that a bias. Everything that fox advertised in the last 20 years has led us from bad to worse in the most objective way possible. He actually calls truth orwelian facts. He calls poor people who have been robed either communists, lesser people or thugs. It's either free people or free market(of people) cause that's what the free market means. It's slavery.