By Jonathan Isaby
Earlier in the month, Andrew Marr took a pop at bloggers, as I noted here.
Last night it was the turn of Rupert Murdoch.
Paul summarised his Centre for Policy Studies Margaret Thatcher lecture here, but I thought I should explicitly quote his words about blogging:
"Our journalism is hard-driving and questioning of authority. And so are our journalists. Often, I have cause to celebrate editorial endeavour. Occasionally, I have had cause for regret. Let me be clear: We will vigorously pursue the truth – and we will not tolerate wrongdoing.
"Now, it would certainly serve the interests of the powerful if professional journalists were muted – or replaced as navigators in our society by bloggers and bloviators. Bloggers can have a social role – but that role is very different to that of the professional seeking to uncover facts, however uncomfortable."
For someone who has been such a pioneer in the media world, it's a shame to hear him being so dismissive of blogging - not least because we bloggers are regularly questioning authority and uncovering facts, as he was claiming to favour last night.
Moreover, I would wager that his news outlets are running stories which originated on blogs with increasing regularity (and probably failing to credit them as the source more often than not).
N.B. Declaration of interest/resentment: I did try to get an invitation to last night's lecture, but was told that the guest list was "strictly controlled by News Corp"...
