The Cost of the Free Press

In an appearance on the Kalb Report, Rupert Murdoch advocates charging for online news, opines on President Obama, The New York Times and more.

May 8, 2010

Murdoch speaking at Kalb Report with Kalb in background

By Menachem Wecker

Though many readers expect online news to be free, media mogul Rupert Murdoch says they will pay if confronted with no other options.

“We are going to stop people like Google or Microsoft from taking our stories for nothing,” said Mr. Murdoch April 6 on the Kalb Report at the National Press Club.

According to Mr. Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corporation, which owns dozens of companies, including 20th Century Fox, FOX News, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, Google has a “very clever business model” based on search advertising. But the tens of millions of words a day that Google produces, which generate “a river of gold” in advertisements, are mostly looted from newspapers, according to Mr. Murdoch.

“I think they ought to stop it. The newspapers ought to stand up and let them do their own reporting,” he said. “We will be very happy if they just publish our headlines and a maybe a sentence or two. That’s it, followed by a subscription form for the Journal.”

When Marvin Kalb, host and moderator of the report and James Clark Welling Presidential Fellow at GW, cited a recent study finding that 84 percent of Web users say that they will not pay for news online, Mr. Murdoch dismissed it. “I think when they’ve got nowhere else to go they’ll start paying if it’s reasonable,” he said. “No one is going to start asking for a lot of money.”

The Wall Street Journal’s new site on the Apple iPad, which Mr. Murdoch showed the audience, sells a daily electronic version for $3.99. But however innovative the iPad version of the journal is – it features video clips embedded in stories – Mr. Murdoch will not be getting his news digitally. “I’m old,” he said. “I like the tactile experience of a newspaper.”

Throughout the program, Mr. Kalb pressed Mr. Murdoch on whether he was overseeing the death of the print newspaper. Mr. Murdoch said the traditional newspaper may indeed cease to be published – “I think it will take a long time, but it may” – but that would simply be an evolution of the news medium rather than the decline of reporting.

“The fact is that it is very hard in this country, and other countries, to find people under the age of 30 who ever buy a newspaper,” he said. I don’t know how many students at GW ever read one.” “One hundred percent,” Mr. Kalb interjected wishfully.

Mr. Kalb asked what Mr. Murdoch reads. “I spend more time than most people reading the newspapers,” said Mr. Murdoch, specifically The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post. “But you own those two!” countered Mr. Kalb. Mr. Murdoch explained that he is ultimately responsible for what appears in his newspapers, so he is obligated to read them. Mr. Kalb wondered about The New York Times and The Washington Post. “I go through it [The New York Times], and I stop at several places,” he said. “No, I don’t read The Washington Post. I probably should, but I don’t.”

“Do you walk around with one of those Blackberries constantly checking on what’s going on here, what’s the market like?” asked Mr. Kalb. Mr. Murdoch does not, he said, but he has a double computer screen behind his desk, which he uses to compare the Web sites of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Mr. Murdoch also weighed in a wide range of issues and public figures, from education to Sarah Palin and social media.

On the English: “Well they were sleepy there, you know. If you went to work for eight hours every day, you were ahead of the competition … As part of my Australianism, I wanted to take [the English] on.”

On Bill O’Reilly: “Bill likes to say he’s a Long Island working class boy who has made good. I can’t claim that privilege.”

On Sean Hannity: “I think Hannity is very good. I think he is an extremely sincere, open, Catholic conservative – traditionally. He’s a very nice man. He has a huge audience, and that’s fine. But nobody says it’s anything else but comment from one man.”

On Sarah Palin: She is not a journalist, “nor does she pretend to be one.” The ratings leap whenever she is on. “We are not averse to high ratings.”

On President Obama: “I’m like the rest of the country. I hope he does well. … I think he’s missing a great opportunity for a wonderful legacy by not tackling the education system in this country. He’s made very good speeches about it, but he has not really faced the unions, his supporters.” Would Mr. Murdoch support the president if he did take on the unions, wondered Mr. Kalb. “Absolutely,” he said. “I think what he has said in speeches that he’d like to see has been absolutely right.”

On education: “We are criminal in this country in that we are turning out a new generation of people less educated than their parents. It’s going to have long-term effects that are very serious.”

On social media: “These social networks are an interesting phenomenon, but I don’t think they are changing the world.”

On The New York Times: “I’ve got great respect for the Times, except it does have very clearly an agenda, and you can see it in the way they choose their stories, what they put on page one. I think anything Mr. Obama wants. The White House pays off by feeding them stories.” A lot of people get irritated with the Times, “certainly in New York there is a very big Jewish society who feels it is far too critical of Israel.” But “it has a lot of very good work in it … We think it is formidable.”

On Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): “I find him personally likeable. He’s sometimes a little hard to read. You wonder which side of the bed he got out of that morning. But he’s obviously a great patriot. Any man who’s been through what he’s been through, you can make a lot of excuses for.”

On Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the Times, and a recent target of a Wall Street Journal story saying he has feminine features: “He doesn’t like me I don’t think.” On the story, “Oh, that’s nonsense. I never noticed it. … It was done as a joke. He should have a life. I mean come on.”

On FOX News: “We are not Republicans.”

On his own politics: “Somewhere radical I’d say ... I’m not frightened of change.”

Not all of Mr. Murdoch’s one liners were snappy though. Asked what he thought of being called “one of the most powerful men in the world,” he said, “I don’t let it get to me. I don’t really believe it.”

Michael Freedman, executive director of the GW Global Media Institute and executive producer of the Kalb Report, called the interview a “rare opportunity” for GW students to get a personal glimpse of “one of the most dynamic and successful media barons in history.”

“Whether you agree or disagree with his editorial stand, Rupert Murdoch is the one major newspaper owner who is demanding that content be an equal player at the bargaining table along with new business models and new technology - and he is willing to take huge financial risks in doing so,” said Mr. Freedman, who is also a professor of media and public affairs. “He is displaying bold leadership, which provides a great example for our students. Love him or not, there he was in living color and we were honored to have him!”

The Kalb Report series is produced by the GW Global Media Institute, The National Press Club and Harvard’s Shorenstein Center. It is underwritten by a grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.