"But I don't think I will be proven wrong on one point. The newspaper, or a very close electronic cousin, will always be around. It may not be thrown on your front doorstep the way it is today. But the thud it makes as it lands will continue to echo around society and the world."
I do believe the printed newspapers will still be around for some time yet. When television first came on the scene, some people were predicting the demise of radios but as we know radios are still around with us today.
It is good to see the Boyer Lecture Series is still alive.
I do thank Murdoch for starting a national daily newspaper, The Australian, because we did not have a daily national newspaper then, except for the daily Australian Financial Review which had a small circulation then and was not thought of as a broad-based daily.
What we do need to keep an eye on in this country though is that there is no further increase in the concentration of media ownership, which is already concentrated in few hands. We also need to make sure that we have sufficient number of Australian-owned media to give us that "Australian" perspective in news reporting.
A vibrant and diverse media is an essential ingredient for a healthy, open, and free society like ours.
