By Raw Story

Tabloids are king and blogs are "barely discernible from massive ignorance," according to John Hartigan, chief executive for News Limited, a cog in the Rupert Murdoch empire responsible for the publication of more than fifty newspapers in Australia.

Earlier today, Hartigan "told the National Press Club in Canberra that the newspaper business had to adapt, but would survive."

"I'm here to celebrate the future of journalism, not to consign it to an analogue archive," he said.

But Hartigan seems to believe that online journalism is not part of that future.

Citizen journalists, he says, simply don't have the resources to bring us reliable news. They lack not only expertise and training but access to decision makers and reliable sources.

The difference, he says, between professionals and amateurs is that bloggers don't go to jail for their work – they simply aren't held accountable like real reporters.

Like Keating's famous "all tip and no iceberg", it could be said that the blogosphere is all eyeballs and no insight.

Blogger Darryl Mason rails, "John Hartigan is full of shit. Bloggers have gone to jail for their work, and to protect their sources, in North Korea, Iran, Egypt, the list of countries persecuting bloggers grows longer by the week. And the CEO of Australia's biggest news corporation doesn't know this?"

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/01/bloggers-dont-go-to-jail-murdoch-ceo-laments/

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