While many have demonized Rupert Murdoch over the years, the truth and integrity of the man have often been overshadowed by his cunning business strategy and celebrity presence. The world is coming to the conclusion that love him or hate him he just my be one of the only empires strong and established enough to stand up to the young bucks of the tech world. According to a Buzzfeed article by Steven Perlberg and Mark Di Stefano:\u00a0\"Murdoch's bare-knuckle tactics are familiar to his many media enemies. Now his sights are set on Silicon Valley, and fellow media executives are starting to think the billionaire villain behind Fox News isn't so bad<\/em>.\"<\/p>\n Yet, as we watch the battle unfold, we have to ask ourselves, have the\u00a0tech giants have already <\/em>won?<\/em>\u00a0They have not only captured the market, they have significantly changed the market<\/span> to the point where literacy and attention are becoming, a thing of the past. <\/strong><\/p>\n If the publishing industry is to take back the narrative, they need a strategy to recapture and change (empower) the market to regain the skills and smarts of the 50's.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The question is ultimately HOW does the publishing industry WIN NO MATTER WHAT? HOW DOES THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY RETRAIN, REBUILD AND GROW THE MARKET?<\/p>\n As the media\u00a0industry girds for war with Silicon Valley\u2019s powerful tech companies, its executives are coming to a painful realization: Rupert Murdoch saw it coming.<\/strong><\/p>\n The octogenarian Aussie is seen in his industry as a rogue, a villain, and a bit of a Luddite, crouching behind his paywalls as the future arrives. His empire\u2019s most daring technical innovation might have been phone hacking.<\/p>\n But in recent months, the 86-year-old billionaire has emerged to his industry as something else: a hero.<\/strong><\/p>\n Murdoch and his chief newspaper lieutenant, News Corp CEO Robert Thomson, have taken a central role in the news industry\u2019s corporate war against Facebook and Google, technology leviathans that have eaten journalism\u2019s business model and forever changed how readers consume information.<\/strong><\/p>\n That dynamic has until recently been the stuff of insider-y media trade stories and navel-gazing panel discussions, but the 2016 election changed everything. Stories in recent months highlighting Facebook and Google\u2019s fraught role in the election \u2014 from the\u00a0spread of \u201cfake news\u201d\u00a0to\u00a010 million people viewing Russian-bought ads\u00a0\u2014 have thrust skepticism about the power held by social giants into mainstream public view like never before.<\/strong><\/p>\n Now media executives are\u00a0sensing blood in the water\u00a0\u2014 hoping that Facebook and Google\u2019s legitimate public relations nightmare might give news outlets more leverage in business negotiations, and that Washington lawmakers and the public at large will come to see tech giants as public utilities that require regulation.<\/strong><\/p>\n His bare-knuckle tactics are familiar to both UK election campaigns \u2014 \u201cIt\u2019s The Sun Wot Won It\u201d \u2014 and brutal\u00a0regulatory battles\u00a0in the US. In a\u00a0legendary late 1980s cross-ownership feud in Boston, Murdoch\u2019s Herald newspaper launched a vicious campaign against Senator Ted Kennedy, who had blocked the mogul\u2019s exemption from owning a newspaper and television station in the same market. (Read one anti-Kennedy lead from a Boston Herald columnist: \u201cWas it something I said, Fat Boy?\u201d)<\/p>\n As the most well-connected media mogul in Washington, the news industry might need Murdoch now more than ever. Since then, the paper has published 18 front pages taking on Facebook and Google, YouTube\u2019s owner, with headlines like \u201cGOOGLE: WE WON\u2019T REMOVE VIDEO THAT ATTACKS JEWS\u201d and \u201cFACEBOOK PUBLISHING CHILD PORN.\u201d<\/p>\n The Times series and subsequent reporting from other outlets this spring (like Murdoch\u2019s Wall Street Journal) sparked an advertiser exodus from YouTube by brands like Sainsbury\u2019s, McDonald\u2019s, and L\u2019Oreal. Thomson even railed against social media companies on an investor call on the same day of the Times\u2019 initial story, adding that, conveniently, News Corp was\u00a0testing its own digital-advertising network.<\/p>\n The YouTube advertiser revolt didn\u2019t harm Google\u2019s staggeringly strong bottom line, but the Times series rattled the company enough to lead to a face-to-face meeting between Murdoch, Thomson, and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, according to sources.<\/p>\n \u201c[Google and Facebook] would prefer we didn't draw so much attention to the problematic content on their platforms. Understand firstly that we're not going to stop. Secondly, this content is a huge issue,\u201d said a senior executive at Murdoch\u2019s UK newspapers.<\/p>\n To be sure, journalists across the board have been homing in on Facebook and Google because it has been a captivating story.<\/p>\n Lawmakers and regulators from Washington to London to Brussels have begun scrutinizing tech giants once lauded as corporate darlings. Facebook, Google, and Twitter are being\u00a0dragged to Capitol Hill\u00a0to answer questions about Russian attempts to use social media to influence the 2016 presidential election. Mark Zuckerberg has\u00a0spent months walking back Facebook\u2019s PR line\u00a0that the company\u2019s influence in the election was a \u201cpretty crazy idea.\u201d Google was\u00a0slapped with a monster antitrust fine\u00a0after a seven-year EU investigation.<\/p>\n For media executives, the tides of public opinion turning against Facebook and Google couldn\u2019t have come any sooner, and they are happy to keep up the pressure. News Corp sources describe its battle against the platforms as a business, not moral imperative.<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s because the so-called duopoly of Facebook and Google, by some estimates,\u00a0accounted for nearly 100%\u00a0of the growth in US digital ad revenue last year. Nearly all mainstream media outlets derive a mammoth portion of their audience from the very platforms that are swallowing them whole. Some digital upstarts have built entire businesses on the backs of the social platforms, and are therefore routinely beholden to the whims of their tech overlords (case in point: the \u201cpivot to video\u201d). For years, that reality has been enough to keep media executives up at night \u2014 but also hushed in their criticism.<\/p>\n ...<\/p>\n \u201cThe digital duopoly clearly benefited from commodifying content and rewarding sites, fake or flawed, that gamed search engines and peddled witless clickbait at the expense of provenance and professional journalism,\u201d Thomson told BuzzFeed News in a statement. \u201cThat commercial and social damage has been a serious concern for many, many years, and yet other publishers have been supine in the face of this assault on principle and profit.\u201d<\/p>\n Sources close to Thomson, long a loyal Murdoch ally in both London and New York, say the battle against Google is ultimately his baby, more so than Murdoch, who since the Roger Ailes scandal has taken on the top role at Fox News. But it\u2019s a narrative happily championed by the close-knit circle of executives at News Corp and 21st Century Fox, sister companies that split in 2013. James Murdoch, Rupert\u2019s son and chief executive of 21st Century Fox, recently lambasted Facebook for its problem with the \u201cdamn Russians.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be kidding me,\u201d he said in an\u00a0interview with The Information.<\/p>\n The Murdochs have a reason to play up any negative news about Facebook or Google. News Corp, like all media companies, is engaged in a losing fight with the \u201cduopoly\u201d for a finite amount of digital advertising money. News Corp also collides with Google through its investment in AppNexus, a rival to Google\u2019s DoubleClick. And then there\u2019s News Corp\u2019s planned digital ad network,\u00a0announced\u00a0the day of the first Times story and still in development.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you think the timing of the Times investigation and the launch of News Corp\u2019s new digital ad strategy was purely a coincidence, well, I\u2019ve got a bridge to sell you,\u201d said one senior advertising executive.<\/strong><\/p>\n ...<\/p>\n Sources close to Murdoch and Thomson characterize their position fairly simply: They want large tech platforms to pay them for their content, and they aren\u2019t afraid to use their own media properties as weapons. Which isn\u2019t to say that reporters are directly told to go after Facebook or Google, but that those stories are prioritized, given heavier promotion and placement, and then championed by the executive structure.<\/p>\n \u201cThe power of the campaigning British newspaper is planting a seed in the head of the audience \u2014 many who aren\u2019t spending hours and hours on the internet. They\u2019re saying, \u2018You probably wouldn\u2019t know the evil that your Google or your Facebook are hosting. Here it is and here\u2019s why you should care,\u2019\u201d said a former senior editor at a UK Murdoch paper. \u201cOver months, maybe even years, that little seed grows and attitudes can start changing.\u201d<\/p>\n But a senior correspondent at The Sun, Murdoch\u2019s tabloid, said the paper was genuinely concerned with big tech \u2014 and that the coverage was more than just a self-interested business battle.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of the coverage of the tech giants is linked to the terror stuff because that\u2019s what our audience cares about,\u201d this person said. \u201cThe editor genuinely believes the internet is the Wild West and tech companies, some which are bigger than governments, should be doing more to make it safer.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Ultimately, sources close to Murdoch say that he hopes to push public opinion into viewing tech platforms more like Wall Street banks. And after years of bitter criticism, a softer refrain is echoing among Murdoch\u2019s media contemporaries: Say what you want about Rupert, but he does love the news business.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Source:\u00a0https:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/stevenperlberg\/rupert-murdoch-is-the-medias-unlikely-hero-against-tech<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Rupert Murdoch is 86 years old, while many may doubt his integrity and moral standing, he has voiced his opinion on the importance of freedom of the press, journalistic integrity and the social engineering he has watched consume the world. He has created a legacy within the publishing world, yet he is smart enough to not only be concerned about the legacy of his company, but the survival of the publishing industry as a whole.<\/p>\n However, in the fight for revival of the publishing world we have to examine what we are fighting for. Our technical world has created cultures and shadow cultures of people that have learned not to read and learn - they have been conditioned to be entertained and seek instant gratification. If the publishing industry is to survive it needs to not just capture the market, but clearly define a pathway to change the market, to empower the market that has been dumbed down.<\/em><\/p>\n Much of what passes for quality on British televisionInformational Insights: Tech Companies, Taming the \"Wild West\"<\/h2>\n
\nGoogle and Facebook might do well to study the Kennedy incident. The Times of London, a Murdoch-owned British daily newspaper, has engaged in a months-long campaign this year exposing various problems with tech platforms, particularly issues that have concerned advertisers. The series began on Feb. 9 when a jarring image was splashed across the front page: an advertisement for resort chain Sandals next to a jihadi YouTube video. \u201cBIG BRANDS FUND TERROR,\u201d\u00a0read the headline.<\/p>\nPossibilities for Consideration: Freedom of Press<\/h2>\n
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Add Your Insight:<\/h2>\n
\nis no more than a reflection of the values of the narrow elite which controls it.<\/em><\/strong>
\nRUPERT MURDOCH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"