By Darryl Mason
This is shocking. Digitally nervous News Limited CEO John Hartigan has launched a brutal, vicious attack on bloggers, all bloggers, including his own Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph bloggers : Piers Akerman, Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt :
"Then there are the bloggers. In return for their free content, we pretty much get what we've paid for. Something of such little intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance."Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt's boss has obviously been keeping an eye on their blogs for a while now :
"Bloggers don't go to jail for their work. They simply aren't held accountable like real reporters....It could be said the blogosphere is all eyeballs and no insights."
"In the blogosphere, of course, the mainstream media is always found wanting. It really is time this myth was blown apart."
"Blogs, and a large number of comment sites, specialise in political extremism and personal vilification. Radical sweeping statements without evidence are common."That's a bit hardcore, isn't it? Doesn't Hartigan know how much traffic blogs that specialise in personal vilification and political extremism generate for News Limited?
After using most of an hour of a live ABC TV broadcast to pump and hype the success of the Murdoch media online, News Limited CEO John Hartigan didn't have time to explain how New Limited lawyers acting for two journalists have tried to shut down independent blogs; desired to find out anonymous blogggers' real names; demanded payments for "immeasurable hurt" allegedly caused by bloggers to News Limited journalists, all fit into his high-profile 'Right To Know' campaign to protect sources, shield whistleblowers and demand greater freedom for the media.
Maybe next time.
Note : Seeing as John Hartigan didn't single out certain bloggers for criticism, we have to assume that when he says "And there are the bloggers" he is referring to all bloggers, including Akerman, Blair and Bolt.
