CEO & Director, News
Search every verified Robert Thomson interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp, has been a vocal critic of major technology platforms, arguing that companies like Google and Facebook have devalued content created by news organizations. In a 2018 speech, he compared the dominance of these digital platforms to that of Big Tobacco, questioning "when does irresistibility become irresponsibility." He has called for an Algorithm Review Board to increase accountability and transparency from dominant algorithms, and has stated that if large digital companies want to avoid the fate of Big Tobacco, they need to take the initiative rather than being reactive. In a 2019 oration, Thomson defended the Murdoch family against what he described as a "rancid New York Times hatchet job" and "multi-generational muck spreading." He also discussed the importance of the U.S.-China relationship, describing it as the most important bilateral relationship globally and noting that the world is "in the midst of a crucial shift in that axis." Thomson has expressed concern about the growing size of the state in the UK and has advocated for the protection of intellectual property and privacy, stating that "if we are to be a well-informed society, you have to respect the provenance of intellectual property."
“It's clear that there will be more regulation of companies who have sort of defied definition and avoided a reckoning. Laws should not be rushed or reactionary.”
“There is one relationship which far exceeds the rest in importance — Beijing and Washington — and we are in the midst of a crucial shift in that axis.”
“I can't claim to have read and reread religiously every word of a recent rancid New York Times hatchet job that's a technical journalistic term but the portrait painted in my view was distant from the truth smearing sir Keith Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch was multi-generational muck spreading in which the facts were incid...”
“It's surely efficacious to have thoughtful people and a broad range of views to help us all to divine the difference between the artifice of intelligence and artificial intelligence however it turned out that a mob of Google employees were not as keen to have a discursive discussion as she wrote quote they greeted the...”
“China still has a binary approach to trade and on those monochromatic terms the country recognizes that has obviously had far the better of the bilateral deal we are fortunate that China's economic czar liu he is a thoughtful empathetic individual who shares a guilty pleasure with me he has a fondness for Arsenal Footb...”
“The Wall Street Journal would not be as trusted without the investment in his journalism made by Rupert Murdoch and The Times of London the most trusted paper in the UK may not even exist without his continuing commitment and the Australian would simply never have been created these inconvenient truths tend to be ignor...”
“If big digital wants to avoid the fate of Big Tobacco, it needs to take the initiative rather than being reactive.”
“There should be an Algorithm Review Board to get more accountability and transparency from the three overwhelmingly dominant algorithms: Facebook, Google, YouTube and Amazon.”
“When you have 93 or 92% of search in Europe, then that's a lot of search; the prospect of regulating that dominant platform has to be studied.”
“If we are to be a well-informed society, you have to respect the provenance of intellectual property, you have to respect privacy; there is a hierarchy of journalism.”
“It devalues content; the creators of content have lost value and the distributors of content have gained in value.”
“You're no longer publishing newspapers — you're creating communities.”
“He has never instructed me on what to put in the paper; we've never talked about what's in the next day's paper.”
“The defining issue is the growing size of the state. If it reaches 43–45% of GDP, that is an enormous state and risks stifling Britain's vibrancy — the question is whether Mr Brown or Mr Cameron recognise that long‑term danger.”
“Aggregators were tape worms in the intestines of the internet. I think that's accurate actually, that's exactly what they are. They're sort of websites as parasites.”
Robert Thomson delivers the 2019 Keith Murdoch Oration on the topic: truth, trust and tech.
Listen to an audio-only presentation of Robert Thomson delivering the 2019 Keith Murdoch Oration on truth, trust and tech.
Newscorp CEO Robert Thomson filmed by Capitol Intelligence/BBN using CI Glass comparing social media monopolies such as Google and Facebook as Big Tobacco at Open Markets Institute forum "Breaking the News: Free Speech and Democracy in the Age of Platform Monopoly" in Washington DC. June 12, 2018
Zanny Minton-Beddoes and Robert Thomson will discuss the future of publishing, not only with regards to magazine or newspapers, but also books. How will print-media (and online media) change in the face of increasing digitalization? What are the challenges, what the opportunities? Robert Thomson is a big Google critic who considers online-media sources to be predators for conventional print news sources – an interesting departure point for fruitful discussion.
Rumor has it that newspapers will inevitably disappear, but according to Uncommon Knowledge's interview with Robert Thomson, chief executive officer of News Corp, that doesn't need to happen. Thomson discusses how newspapers have always created a community and how that can be done better now than ever before. Thomson became CEO in January 2013; before that he was editor in chief at Dow Jones & Company and managing editor of the Wall Street Journal. News Corp, often called the New News after it recently separated from Twenty-First-Century Fox, is a network of leading companies in diversified me…
07/11/2007- Editor of the Times and favourite to become the new editor of the Wall Street Journal, Robert Thomson, talks to Roy Greenslade about the media, news and journalism. Robert Thomson, who was born in Australia, became the editor of The Times in 2002 after 17 years at The Financial Times. Since then the newspaper has changed format, from broadsheet to 'compact' to attract younger audiences. Under his leadership the newspaper has also started paying more attention to world politics, business and finance and sport. As part of the Frontline Editors Roundtable series. Moderated by…
Robert Thomson Editor in Chief, Wall Street Journal at Turkish Cultural Center.
The first couple of minutes of the SAJA Convention keynote speech by Robert Thomson, the new managing editor of the Wall Street Journal. More at http://www.sajaforum.org/convention
Wed 7th November Moderated by Prof Roy Greenslade (City University). Editor of the Times and favourite to become the new editor of the Wall Street Journal, Robert Thomson, talks to Roy Greenslade about the media, news and journalism.
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