Bloggers don’t go to jail, Murdoch CEO laments
Published: July 1, 2009
Updated 4 months ago
Tabloids are king and blogs are “barely discernible from massive ignorance,” according to John Hartigan, chief executive for News Limited, a cog in the Rupert Murdoch empire responsible for the publication of more than fifty newspapers in Australia.
Earlier today, Hartigan “told the National Press Club in Canberra that the newspaper business had to adapt, but would survive.”
“I’m here to celebrate the future of journalism, not to consign it to an analogue archive,” he said.
But Hartigan seems to believe that online journalism is not part of that future.
Citizen journalists, he says, simply don’t have the resources to bring us reliable news. They lack not only expertise and training but access to decision makers and reliable sources.
The difference, he says, between professionals and amateurs is that bloggers don’t go to jail for their work – they simply aren’t held accountable like real reporters.
Like Keating’s famous “all tip and no iceberg”, it could be said that the blogosphere is all eyeballs and no insight.
Blogger Darryl Mason rails, “John Hartigan is full of shit. Bloggers have gone to jail for their work, and to protect their sources, in North Korea, Iran, Egypt, the list of countries persecuting bloggers grows longer by the week. And the CEO of Australia’s biggest news corporation doesn’t know this?”
Even in America, bloggers have been jailed for various reasons.
Strangely enough, Hartigan’s speech championing tabloids for running “most of the important campaigns in recent years” comes just days after his newspapers were criticized for posting stories based upon a fake e-mail.
From the Barcelona News Network:
Australian Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull led the charge last Friday, claiming an email from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s office to the Treasury requesting favorable treatmnent for one of Rudd’s associates, proved the prime minister had misled the Australian parliament and should resign.
….
Boosting the opposition leader was a story on the front page of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch’s company, News Limited, on Friday June 19. The story was also run on the front page of other Murdoch newspapers across Australia.
….
By Monday the AFP had established the email was a forgery. Turnbull came under pressure throughout this week for relying on a fake email, and promoting it. The whole matter was a hoax and even members of Turnbull’s own party criticised his naivety.
Nowhere was there any criticism of the Murdoch newspapers for not authenticating the email before engaging in a mass publication of its content. It seems News was taken in, hook, line and sinker, and did far more to promote what turned out to be a fake email than Turnbull.
FULL TRANSCRIPT OF SPEECH AT THIS LINK
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Real reporters? You’re shitting me!
Murdock’s (foreign owned) FOX “News” propaganda channel has journalistic standards? OMG! What hubris!
Folks, if you’re not boycotting FOX channels, you are a traitor to our country.
Likewise for the MSNBC, NBC, and CNBC.
Did you catch the article about General Electric cashing in the most chips on the TARP swindle??
Or if you buy its advertiser’s products you’re a Traitor!
Murdock ought to take a lesson: even Hollywood built facades out of plywood. Only Murdock builds facades out of toilet paper and expects them to withstand hurricanes.
Oh Puleeze -
This guy has something to say about ‘reliable news and I quote:
‘Citizen journalists, he says, simply don’t have the resources to bring us reliable news. They lack not only expertise and training but access to decision makers and reliable sources.’
Even as his ‘news’ organization CONSISTENTLY misidentifies the political party of Republicans in trouble typically for cheating on their wife. Gov. Mark Sanford being identified as a Democrat being the most recent example.
its funny that these multi million dollar corporations are scared of me sitting behind my computer screen and typing what I feel.
like somehow more people talking and learning information is some sort of bad thing
they are idiots and are going to fail
Haha, murdock’s inhuman control of media to be used as fascist propaganda is in jeopardy or otherwise this asshat wouldn’t be pissing and moaning.
So, I’m curious, Is Murdoch 1 An Aussie, 2 An American, or 3 An Israeli? I can’t figure it out. I’ll bet he is a good friend of the War Criminal H. Kissinger.
People have already mentioned the rank silliness of this goober picker’s comments, but let me reiterate. For an administrator of the Murdoch media network to go on about journalistic standards is Saturday Night Live material. Mr. Letterman and Jon Stewart would go to town on this one.
I have yet to see any MSM “reporter” going to jail for misreporting the news. Judy-baby’s little stint doesn’t count because she went to jail for not telling where she got her stories from. When Limbaugh, Hannity and O’Reilly spend some hard time for their ethically challenged blathering, then this dork can go on about how great MSM reporters are. Until then, he needs to first apologize and then go hide in the middle of the Outback for the next ten years.
As for their abilities to report the news, it wasn’t the MSM who saw the financial disaster coming and started screaming about it long ago. It wasn’t the MSM that took off on the Downing Street Memos. It wasn’t the MSM that opposed the “fiasco in Iraqo.” And it CERTAINLY is not the Murdoch corporation that is reporting the misdeeds of the Master’s of the Universe.
“Citizen journalists, he says, simply don’t have the resources to bring us reliable news”…
Yeah well it’s MORE reliable than Fox News; it’s non-biased and it’s the WHOLE truth - not edited to prove their agendas!
AND… Thank God for Bloggers and ALL Internet News; otherwise we’d all be like Fox Viewers that only watch Fox.
His comment, “access to decision makers” means bloggers don’t get directed about how to shape and control the news like the mainstream media journalists are.
Yeah, lol. If he thinks he can put this genie back in the bottle, he’s foolishly attempting an exercise in futility.
Hartigan and FOX are wrong. He wrote in part, “Citizen journalists, he says, simply don’t have the resources to bring us reliable news. They lack not only expertise and training but access to decision makers and reliable sources.”
I draw his attention and yours, too to my Blog and then you tell me whether it’s “unreliable or lacks expertise, etc.” It does not - check it out at http://www.halfwaypundit.blogspot.com
He is flat out wrong.
~ dan francis
LOL - This nitwits probably pissed off that some bloggers do real investigative reporting, unlike ALL of the brain dead nimrods that Ruppy employs.
The elite are terrified the people will stop swallowing their non-stop stream of propaganda and throw off their lock of control. Example : A baby elephant held in captivity must have one leg chained to a spike to keep it from running away … it will tug and fight the chain until it finally gives up. Later as an adult all that is necessary to keep it from running is a rope which it could easily yank free … but it has learned it is futile …
The same is with the propaganda that the elite have fed us our whole lives. What’s happening is the elephant is beginning to wonder about the rope and realizes it’s a scam. We are breaking free.
Main Stream Media = Manure Spreading Media.
Lol at Murdoch thinking he does real journalism. You know perhaps the mainstream media would be a lot more credible if they didn’t pony up to the establishment so much of the time. The reason blogs are much more successful is because blogs don’t bull ***** all the time as the mainstream media does and they cover things the mainstream media doesn’t. The elites are scared!! What will they
Murdoch is, among other nefarious things, the mother of yellow journalism. His practice of negating an actual story with some cooked up piece adjacent to the column had been standard practice long before Fox became the great and popular institution for propaganda it is known for today. Instrumental in taking down the Australian government in 1975 with his opinion vs reportage this rag tag journalistic behavior leaves no margin for blue pencil criticism from his “editors”. They should fear the blogs or any other kind of agency they cannot manipulate or control. Arrrrrrrrgh, y’self matey!
There’s only one rule according to the Republican Underwriters News System (The Runs):
Jail any competition!
Goddamn socialist bastards. I can’t believe how much they hate America!
Give me a break — this Murdoch lackey is about as credible speaking on journalistic standards as Jack the Ripper would be lecturing us on dating protocol.
The most meaningful difference between MSM and citizen journalists is integrity — the citizen journalists have it, MSM does not, and what’s more, a growing subset of the population is beginning to see this which makes MSM stuffed shirts like Hartigan nervous.
Too bad, Hartigan, deal with it.
It’s been proven in our financial sector that having a suit and tie doesn’t give you intelligence, ethics, or a modicum of common sense.
A garbage man or secretary probably has more insight than the monkeys who work for Murdoch.
News used to be objective and had no agenda or run by corporate entities telling them what they could or could not say. Bloggers can pretty much say what they want, how they want without 15 cooks in the kitchen, saying “cut this” or “say it like that”.
Bloggers give us a rich diversity and varied viewpoints. Anything owned by Murdoch is basically a conservative mantra….or you’re fired. I can’t believe they let him buy the Wall Street Journal. Now it’s the Financial Times for me (unless the buys that as well). Corporately sponsored media has become an unreliable tool.
Any one of us could get a job at News Corp. with a one-word resume. That word: Republican.
Oh you’re sorry bloggers can’t be jailed for telling the truth, you ole bastard? Well, I’m sorry your ass isn’t in jail for committing treason…and the blood of nearly a million innocent people is all over your filthy hands.
This article has a very misleading headline.
The headline is amateurish, misleading, and reeks of the ethics adhered to by Drudge and Fox.
People are leaving the Marshall Islands in droves. Perhaps we can name it
“God Land”, brand it as a Republican Paradise, where you can see China from your kitchen window! Lolling in paradise! Just imagine. No blacks, no Jews, and no gays, or those nasty Mexicans…ok maybe a few Jews (I have no idea how a Jew or gay can be a Repub…but look at Matt Drudge), but you would need those Mexicans to cook and build, because God forbid they can write or think on their feet!