Far be it for us to gloat. Hmm, that is so untrue we feel the urge to backspace. Urge passed. Allow us to suggest that Rupert Murdoch (or his designated minion) should read our words of wisdom every day. It is mid-2005 (give or take a few months) and he is saying this, now?
In a speech to American editors in Washington, Mr Murdoch issued a stark warning to the industry, arguing that the web was “a fast-developing reality we should grasp”.
He said consumers wanted “control over the media, instead of being controlled by it”, pointing to the proliferation of website diaries known as “blogs” and message boards.
They have the Internet in Tibet. It’s not a fast-developing reality; it is a reality. The entertainment media* missed the boat on MP3s (which we believe we’ll be discussing later) and continue to play catch-up in a way that resembles stepping on the lines in hopscotch.
Murdoch suggests:
“We need to realise that the next generation of people accessing news and information, whether from newspapers or any other source, have a different set of expectations about the kind of news they will get, including when and how they will get it, where they will get it from, and who they will get it from.”
Uh, not just the next generation. The mother has the Internet. If you are smart out, you know that your grandmother reads your blog. Murdoch might be an immigrant to the online world, but our experience has shown (as has the Pew Center for Internet Something or Other) that this web thing isn’t just for the kids. Especially given the ability to deploy digital text to a variety of devices. You can’t resize the newspaper and you can’t take your television with you as you move from building to building during the day.
As always, we’re standing by to offer more advice. In this case, we want a cushy office and one of those people who bring steaming hot coffee every fifteen minutes. And massages. We do our best thinking when pampered and cosseted.
* – Yes, we do realize that news is technically separate from entertainment, but, well, you read headlines. If those don’t exist for the amusement of the masses, we can’t say what does.
