You could almost hear Rupert Murdoch choking on his Corn Flakes last week, when reading – in his own paper, the WSJ – Eric Schmidt’s defensive op-ed that “frustrated newspaper executives are looking for someone to blame” for their travails.
So Rupe has done what comes pretty easily; he’s penned his own WSJ opinion piece. Murdoch’s thoughts are front-page on WSJ.com and, interestingly, given his recent assertions that quality content must be paid for, sit outside the paywall.
But then, this content doesn’t exactly tick the “uniqueness” box – the article is mostly a rehash of views Murdoch has given in interviews and earnings calls since the summer, and most recently, at last week’s FTC How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age? conference…
The highlights… “The critics say people won’t pay. I believe they will, but only if we give them something of good and useful value … Some rewrite, at times without attribution, the news stories of expensive and distinguished journalists who invested days, weeks or even months in their stories