ANALYSIS

Yesterday, he described Gordon Brown as ‘unbalanced’, someone who had declared war on News Corporation in reponse to The Sun switching its support from Labour to David Cameron’s Conservatives.

Today, Rupert Murdoch admitted that he had missed the ‘cover-up’ at the News of the World, a newspaper he also said should have been closed down long ago.

When asked who the buck stopped with at all his newspapers, he replied the Editor, he, Rupert Murdoch, had of course overall responsibility, however he had delegated.

If the 81-year-old the standing of the media mogul had suffered from the phone hacking scandal, then his appearance today and yesterday at the Royal Courts of Justice may have gone someway to recovering any lost ground.

Great power is best exercised when it is understated, especially when it is exposed before the glare of the media spotlight.

And that is exactly what the world saw, as arguably one of the most powerful men in the world explained how he did not intefere in the running of his newspapers, content or welfare of staff and how he closed the NoW after revelations that the phone of tragic schoolgirl Milly Dowler had been hacked. He said he “could feel the blast coming in the window, almost”, as soon as the story broke.

All this will of course make the headlines, however what was perhaps more telling was how he viewed the future of the newspaper industry in the midst of the current electronic revolution.

He gave newspapers another ten years, this from a man for whom running a newspaper is clearly a passion.

How would the new media make money, well the Huffington Post was getting millions of hits but was struggling to make anything.

There are bloggers out there whose work can reach any where.

Work can be pilfered and then put out there with little or no respect for intellectual property rights.

If this was some else talking, then it could be dismissed as yet another world view, however here is the owner of The Sun (as well as Sunday), The Times and The Sunday Times admitting that he could not see a long term future for the newspaper industry.

https://nayabchohan.com/2012/02/29/1366/

https://nayabchohan.com/2011/07/15/the-murdoch-saga-continues/

https://nayabchohan.com/2011/07/12/gordon-brown-and-the-sun-newspaper/