[Sosfbay-discuss] Good news from Davos, Switzerland

[Tian Harter]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/departments/online/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003538870

*Rupert Murdoch: Big Media Has Less Sway on Internet*

By Georg Szalai/The Hollywood Reporter
Published: January 29, 2007 3:10 PM ET

NEW YORK Big media companies and governments ultimately can't stop or
reverse their reduced agenda setting power brought about by the Internet
and digital media, but must learn to live with it and embrace it as an
opportunity, a panel at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum
in Davos, Switzerland said Friday.

Big media conglomerates have less influence amid the continued explosion
of news sites, blogs and podcasts, News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert
Murdoch said in the session moderated by Charlie Rose and available via
Webcast. "It's so pluralistic," Murdoch said. "We all have less power,
much less ... (we) the big companies."

Not only are there many more places from which to get news and opinion
thanks to the Internet, he said. He said traditional media are also "put
right immediately" these days when making mistakes, citing the example
of the CBS News affair surrounding allegations against president George
Bush last year.

Similarly, Murdoch said "government now has to be much more open"
because of the Web and suggested, along with Gordon Brown, chancellor of
the exchequer and the possible future prime minister of the U.K., that
governments should try to see it as an opportunity for them.

"We just have to let this go," Murdoch said. "We can't reverse it."
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Asked if his News Corp. managed to shape the agenda on the war in Iraq,
Murdoch said: "No, I don't think so. We tried." Asked by Rose for
further comment, he said: "We basically supported the Bush policy in the
Middle East ... but we have been very critical of his execution."

The News Corp. CEO also once again signaled that he sees much more
change ahead thanks to digital media. "We're in the very early stages of
it," he said.

During the same panel, Jack Ma Yun, founder and CEO of Chinese Web and
electronic commerce giant Alibaba.com, suggested that outsiders often
overstate China's controls and regulations of the Internet. While many
complain about government censorship, "to me it's not that serious," he
said.

He suggested the Web can't be fully controlled and said his company has
managed to educate the Chinese government about its benefits over the
years and to demonstrate to a growing number of the country's people how
it helps them. "You create value and show the government it works," he said.

Nonetheless, the Alibaba CEO argued that the Internet "needs to be
controlled or managed" in China due to its traditions and size. For
example, he said as a father he likes that China blocks access to online
pornography. But he also expressed discontent over misrepresentations of
past comments of his on various Web sites.

Overall, he argued that "opening (things up) completely would be chaos."

The annual World Economic Forum meeting runs through Sunday and this
year focused on the theme "The Shifting Power Equation."

Acording to the WEF Web site, among prominent media and technology
industry attendees at the event were Sony Corp. chairman and CEO Sir
Howard Stringer, Microsoft Corp. founder and chairman Bill Gates, Google
Inc. co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page along with CEO Eric Schmidt,
as well as BSkyB CEO James Murdoch. Political figures appearing in
sessions included Germany;s federal chancellor Angela Merkel, Israel's
vice prime minister Shimon Peres, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the
Palestinian Authority, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Brazilian
president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Georg Szalai/The Hollywood Reporter (letters at editorandpublishercom 
<mailto:letters at editorandpublisher.com>)

-- 
Tian
2:37 PM, 2/3/07: I was sitting in the KFC in Milpitas on Main 
St. hearing Amanda tell Amber it was "two thirty seven PM".
http://tian.greens.org