‘Project Amsterdam’. According to New York Magazine’s piece on Rupert Murdoch, that’s the name of his $15-million secret plan to defeat The New York Times. A very Bond villain-like name.
Next month, if all goes according to plan, the Journal will launch an eight-to-sixteen-page metropolitan section that will directly challenge the paper of record on its home turf.
This is fascinating. For the first time in decades, if not a whole century, we might have a full-blown newspaper / media war in New York, between true giants. This is good. First of all, it’s fun and exciting. Secondly, it might prove to be good for the readers, and U.S. daily journalism in general.
According to the NY Mag piece, Robert Thomson, the former FT and London Times editor whom Murdoch installed to run the Journal in May 2008, shares the belief that American journalism in general, and the New York Times in particular, is hidebound and decadent.
Shortly after the Journal deal closed in December 2007, Murdoch appeared before “shell-shocked staff, standing on a stack of printer paper like a general addressing a vanquished army.”
“The message was clear,” one reporter in the room remembers. “It was: ‘You’re a bunch of lazy, self-important, past-their-prime journalists.’ ”
Thomson’s shares this view. And, as much as it pains me to say that, it’s pretty spot-on. A lot of digital outlets are faster, smater, more interesting, aggressive and innovative. They simply offer better journalism – in the ever-changing definition of the word.
And the old dinosaurs will always seek conjure the old cloak of “quality journalism”, “watchdog newspaper”, “media that matters” etc., which is an extremely self-serving moralism. And a defeatist excuse. Oh, sure, *I* could absolutely do that. Much better than the other guy, in fact. If I wanted to. But I don’t. It’s way below my level.
Inner, and outter, monologues like this used to be reserved for high schools and teenage boys who failed to win over their love interests.
The weird thing about this is that there is still a bunch of fabolous American journalism in numerous magazines and books. It’s compelling, interesting and dramatic. It favors good stories over general topics editors feel are important. And it’s close to the reader.
If WSJ can offer a compelling alternative to what it means to be a quality daily in the U.S. today, if it can create something both popular and unconventional, smart and interesting – it would be a major victory for daily journalism here.
Here’s what WSJ’s boss Thomson told the NY Mag regarding the upcoming WSJ – NYT showdown:
“There are two personnel moves at the New York Times that I think make them vulnerable. One is Mr. Sulzberger remains in place. And the second is that Howell Raines lost his job. Because whatever Howell Raines’s sins were, he was clearly a reformer. And he was prepared to confront the journalistic elite at the paper and bring the New York Times into the modern ages. That process really stopped when Howell left.”
Think what you will about Murdoch. The fact remains, as Juan Antonio Giner noted, that he is still willing to invest incredible amounts of money into newspapers and journalism. Unlike almost everyone else.
As he was taking over the WSJ, Murdoch got upset about an editorial in NYT, and sent a note to NYT’s Publisher, Sulzberger, signaling readiness to being warfare. NYT’s reponse? Rather expected for an organization that hasn’t had to deal with serious competition for decades:
The next day, Sulzberger was sitting in his office at the Times Building with Richard Beattie, the chairman of law firm Simpson Thacher, who had advised the Dow Jones board during the Journal deal. Sulzberger pulled out Murdoch’s note. “He was laughing at the time,” Beattie told me. “He thought it was cute.” Sulzberger never replied to Murdoch’s letter. When I called Sulzberger to ask about the competition with the Journal, he dismissed my question out of hand: “Whatever,” he said.
Whatever, sayeth Mr Sulzberger. Grab some popcorn, sayeth I. Let the games begin.