The Boyer Lectures

As previously mentioned, the Australian Broadcast Company sponsors an annual lecture series with a prominent Australian. This year, Rupert Murdoch was the speaker. There is much more in the actual lectures than the previous news reports highlighted. You can get the entire series either from the ABC's website, or from iTunes.

A drive for car service gave me time to take in all six -- I highly recommend them, but in particular, the second and third lectures.

Murdoch has a couple of particular insights I haven't seen covered. First, he points to the value of Matt Drudge's news judgment as the key to his website. Drudge serves as a city editor might have in the past, and his ability to glean from other sources and post his results is his particular genius. The way Murdoch explains it, then plays it against the dying age of the old-school editor "who determined what was and was not news".

The second is an expansion of this first -- that news organizations must evolve into "news brands." The reputation of the NYT is in its, well, reputation. If the Times backs a story, puts the stamp of its brand upon it, it adds a certain level of value over the same story from a one-man blog-shop.

Once again, it's value-added content people -- it's content that shall be the coin of the realm. As Murdoch titled his fourth lecture -- Fortune Favours the Smart.

Murdoch's other lectures get into very interesting details about the value of human capital, the need for education and the competitive impact of the rising world-wide middle class.

He also has some suggestions for the future of journalism education that should be taken straight to heart.

As a side note, we hear plenty about the BBC, but let me take a moment in praise of ABC. This is also the home of Gruen Transfer, which was a 10-episode show about the advertising industry that was part Meet the Press, part Daily Show.