Sounds painful when I put it like that.

One of those petards is the phone hacking scandal - the gorgeous irony that Murdoch created a culture of scandal mongering journalism and only to be humiliated because his people took his instructions to their logical conclusion.

The other petard, in some ways more interesting, goes like this.

Decades ago, Murdoch cynically chose an anti-quality business model. He got rid of skilled, though expensive, professional journalists, reduced the serious commentary in his papers, put little or no value on the facts, and concentrated on peddling salacious gossip. Because he figured, rightly as his profit line has shown, that the market for bovine excrement is huge, and - equally importantly - cheap to satisfy. He just had his people make stuff up.

And anybody can do that, right.

Well, it turned out that anybody can. And some do it really well. So, now that the internet has made it possible for anyone to freely produce and publish bovine excrement in unlimited quantities, Rupert is stuck with a bunch of non-profitable papers peddling huge, fly ridden dollops of the stuff. Problem is they can't do it as cheaply as anyone with a laptop, imagination and internet access can.

He can't compete and he can't differentiate.

If, way back, he'd stayed with a model based on professional, quality journalism, he would be able to differentiate. He could point to his skilled staff with powerful research support and say, "You want quality, facts, truth, journalistic integrity? Well here we are, but you'll have to pay for it." Many of us would.

But as it is, Rupert and his editors can't say that. Because, as a matter of strategic choice, they abandoned quality years ago.

And that petard is the one that will hurt him the most.

Because while the NOTW scandal will hurt his reputation, his inability to compete profitably is hurting his hip pocket and will ultimately destroy the media component of his empire.

Which is where Rupert's only pain nerve is located.

Maybe there is a just god.

Anthony
www.observationpoint.com.au

Welcome, and thanks for the thread.
I have posted links from England and America about this issue.
Lived in the birth time of the Australian.
Knew of one who killed himself there in its early days.
Conservatives, and the flagships of this firm, throw mud at the coming Australian review.
It, driven by fear or promises? will be a toothless Tiger.
NOT however the British one,or the American one that will grow as a result of it.
Truth will visit us second hand.
A restriction exists here, not every one under stands you direction, few know of the father of Rupert.
Or of the young Rupert's instant conversion so very many years ago.
He for a very short time was a Social activist!
See both his early involvement then retreat in a murder case.

Karma mabye?

Good points. Anyone can do poor quality and maybe Murdoch's birds have come home to roost, just don't stand under the perch.

Not because I want to put the boot in to Murdock, I do but it would be a flea bite.
But because even without this scandal the fate of the print media, and the natural biases of all media has been brewing for a while.
I expect this thread to be a long one, let us see.
At some future date,looking back we will see this was the time seeds sown that changed both forever.
I get to read free enough international news to choke a horse free!
And the biases are interesting.
Out country ,soft belly scratching investigation or not, can not side step the coming storm.

How true it is! In the seventies when still here in Adelaide with just one Newspaper he opened up the week with the headline "tax rises on the cards". The campaign continued for a whole week without a shred of evidence that tax rises were actually being contemplated, in fact the Adevrtiser which was still a quality paper at that time derided the claims as having no substance. But by the end of the week he had stirred up such a frenzy that the treasurer came out to categorically deny that there would be tax rises. Next day the front page of the News was full of self congratulatory praise - Murdoch had single handedly prevented a tax rise!
No integrity, no substance, no ethics

Only too true BAYGON.
Shame is the average poster never lived in the worst times.
The days that saw honest reporting go out of fashion.
A daily dip in the more substantial British press is informative.
At the end of the inquiry USA and us will be unable to stay out of it.
Just a thought, an unlikely one on past evidence, but I feel the editorial policy's of the Australian, maybe Even the raging rag Sydney Tele, is about to turn on Tony Abbott fiercely so.
Lets wait and see.