Voyage Of Discovery
By Neil Dodds
17 March, 2006
Following on from our report of Rupert Murdoch's latest important speech on the new media revolution, The Times has published a full transcript of its proprietor's speech.
Covering history from man's harnessing of fire to the mapping of DNA via the Battle of Trafalgar and the American Revolution, the News Corp chief makes a case for technological innovation at the service of information dissemination as the driving force behind human progress. It's clear he relishes his new role as revolutionary tech visionary - but what clues does he give to the future of his media empire?
Click 'Open' for some highlights.
"Societies or companies that expect a glorious past to shield them from the forces of change driven by advancing technology will fail and fall.
"That applies as much to my own, the media industry, as to every other business on the planet.
"Power is moving away from the old elite in our industry - the editors, the chief executives and, let’s face it, the proprietors.
"A new generation of media consumers has risen demanding content delivered when they want it, how they want it, and very much as they want it.
"This new media audience - and we are talking here of tens of millions of young people around the world - is ALREADY using technology, especially the web, to inform, entertain and above all to educate themselves.
"This knowledge revolution empowers the reader, the student, the cancer patient, the victim of injustice, anyone with a vital need for the right information.
"It is part of wider changes that reach far beyond the media industry."
(...)
"Whatever our fears, we actually live in a second great age of discovery.
"I believe that the fusion of technology and science allied to the natural creativity embedded in the human spirit will enable us to surmount the dangers we undoubtedly face, and forge a better world for all of us.
"And equally I believe that what is loosely called the media will play a crucial role in shaping that destiny by facilitating the flow of ideas and the interaction of creative minds.
"Never has the flow of information and ideas, of hard news and reasoned comment, been more important.
"The force of our democratic beliefs is a key weapon in the war against religious fanaticism and the terrorism that it breeds.
"Remember, it was ideas – the ideals of democracy allied to the free market – as much as the economic collapse of the Soviet Union that brought the West victory in the cold war.
"The free flow of information is not just a building block of our democratic system; it is also the fuel of the technological revolution.
"We are making new discoveries across the spectrum of science: in medicine, genetics, biology, physics and in every field of technology because information is flowing like rivers between universities, drug and biotech companies, libraries, laboratories, and public and private research centres. And, of course, across most national boundaries.
"That information is carried via print, newspapers, magazines and books. It is carried on television, laptops, personal organisers, cell phones and, of course, the web.
"The media use all these platforms to give the public access to this waterfall of information.
"This is how public opinion is shaped. And we know how public opinion can make history."
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"If print technology had allowed The Times newspaper to launch 100 years before it actually did in 1785, the American Revolution - and everything that flowed from it - might have happened much earlier.
"Had The Times reported the growing fury in the last decade of the 17th century among the North American colonies at taxes imposed by government in London, do we think it would have taken another 100 years before revolution ended colonial rule? I doubt it.
"Since those days, and especially since the rise of the popular press at the turn of the 19th century, the power of the media to influence events and drive change has grown hugely.
"But, as I said earlier, power is moving away from those who own and manage the media to a new and demanding generation of consumers - consumers who are better educated, unwilling to be led, and who know that in a competitive world they can get what they want, when they want it.
"The challenge for us in the traditional media is how to engage with this new audience."
(...)
"I believe we are at the dawn of a golden age of information – an empire of new knowledge."
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"From the wheel to the web, from the printing press to fibre optic cable, it has always been technology that has driven history. Those in the driving seat have always been those who fully understood and used that technology.
"Today one of our great challenges is to understand and seize the opportunities presented by the web.
"It is a creative, destructive, technology that is still in its Infancy, yet breaking and remaking everything it its path."
(...)
"What happens to print journalism in an age where consumers are increasingly being offered on-demand, interactive, news, entertainment, sport and classifieds via broadband on their computer screens, TV screens, mobile phones and handsets?
"The answer is that great journalism will always attract readers. The words, pictures and graphics that are the stuff of journalism have to be brilliantly packaged; they must feed the mind and move the heart.
"And, crucially, newspapers must give readers a choice of accessing their journalism in the pages of the paper or on websites such as Times Online or - and this is important - on any platform that appeals to them, mobile phones, hand-held devices, ipods, whatever. As I have said newspapers may become news-sites. As long as news organisations create must-read, must-have content, and deliver it in the medium that suits the reader, they will endure.
"Great content always has been, and I think always will be, king of the media castle.
"Caxton’s printing press marked a revolution that is with us 500 years later.
"But the history of that revolution is not one in which the new wipes out the old. Radio did not destroy newspapers, television did not destroy radio and neither eliminated the printing of books.
"And whatever you think about Hollywood, the film industry is very much alive.
"Each wave of new technology in our industry forced an improvement in the old. Each new medium forced its predecessor to become more creative and more relevant to the consumer."
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