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.'"
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
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.
Not that I don't think the lawsuit is stupid, but wow, what a pointless diss. Rupert Murdoch owns a company in the UK that some North Americans haven't heard of - so what? We've certainly all heard of it over here.
By the way, BSkyB isn't a "news organization", although they do have a news channel or two.
I'm raising my hand. Rupert Murdoch is a billionaire for a reason. He's right more often than he is wrong. And he has the resources to back this venture.
No. He was right more often than he was wrong 20+ years ago at the time he made decisions that caused him to became a billionaire
A lot can change in 20 years.
The world we lived in underwent major changes when the internet and online news became popular.
We are in a completely different world today, and Murdoch is very much living in the old world. So he may be right less often about things; doesn't mean Murdoch is dumb, it just means he has an incomplete/lacking understanding of all that has changed.
Less complete understanding of the present makes it a bit harder to understand let-alone predict and be right about the future
His thinking about iPad may be more hope than realistic expectation.
It's true the iPad presents an opportunity for him to sell electronic digital content.
But then again we have similar things available on computers and web sites..
News Corp's best chance at selling any news subscriptions for the iPad will be if it becomes more convenient for people to buy/read his content than other free sources, which is doubtful to be true for long.
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.
I'm finding the Guardians website is pretty good for UK news, they actually seem interested in doing investigative journalism. More than a few times the seem to have covered things the BBC and other newspapers won't touch.
You will never find a news organisation which isn't biased. I'd suggest using multiple sources with biases you can determine. I used to use the Guardian, BBC and The Times. The Guardian because its left wing, BBC because their biases are insanely obvious and the Times because it's right wing.
Most people don't perceive a bias if it matches their own. It's why Fox News can exist in the first place.