03 July 2009 A Print Dinosaur

So this John Hartigan bloke, News Ltd CEO, had this to say in regards to the future of journalism…
“Then there are the bloggers. In return for their free content, we pretty much get what we’ve paid for – something of such limited intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance.”
In his speech he then proceeded to point out sites like Crikey and Mumbrella as leeching off journalism in Australia.

You take out these two points and his speech might have had some decent ideas behind it. You’ll notice he didn’t mention anything about The Punch which, funnily enough, is owned by big bad News Ltd. He also failed to mention that a significant amount of their contributors are also bloggers.

This is the dinosaur you’ve selected to keep newspapers and journalism alive in Australia? Good luck with that.

Also, as I write for The Punch I’d just like to say the people running the site do a smashing job, and thankfully do not take the piss out of us bloggers.

Posted by Zac Martin
No Comments
  • Heath
    Posted at July 4, 2009 6:22pm, 04 July Reply

    Hi Zac,

    First time commenter, but a reader for a while now.

    I am amazed by John's comments, but with the growing strength of bloggers and independent journalists, and the reducing strength of mainstream press, he is being pushed into a corner.

    And when people are pushed into a corner, they tend to try and fight their way out. Seems to be what he is doing with his fighting words above.

    Great blog – keep it up.

    Cheers,
    Heath

    p.s. I just started my own up – and mentioned this blog in my first post – http://bit.ly/X2atx

  • lauren
    Posted at July 5, 2009 1:40pm, 05 July Reply

    Since when has News Ltd been in the business of protecting journalistic integrity? And since when has the role of CEO been to do anything except protect the financial interests of a company? A company, BTW, which has been trading information as a commercial transaction, which some may call leeching.

  • Wags
    Posted at July 9, 2009 11:29pm, 09 July Reply

    Did you see Media Watch's report earlier this week on this same issue, and how News Ltd reported Michael Jackson's death? A beautiful shit-canning of News Ltd and "mainstream journalists"!

    Video and transcript available here.

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