Rupert Murdoch did a little fearmongering at yesterday's ASNE conference, urging his newsprint-staining brethren to buck up and embrace the Internet lest they hemorrhage advertising dollars like they have readers:

"Unless we awaken to these changes, we will as an industry be relegated to the status of also-rans," Murdoch said (Ed. pounding his fist on the lectern, one imagines). "...We can and must begin to assimilate to their culture."

The audience's sweaty palms may have less to do with Rupert's fiery rhetoric than with an ASNE survey of young people who hate newspapers with ever fiber of their being (and are sick of getting icky newsprint all over their seersucker suits). Some examples from the brain trust of this great nation:

"I think in general TV is easier...because you don't have to process any information. People want someone to tell them what's important."

Or maybe not: "World events rarely have any bearing on my day-to-day life. They are interesting to know, but don't actually change my day-to-day life."

"I don't think a lot of people read the newspaper because there are other things to do and we already get information in other ways, TV and the Internet. I don't see myself buying something I can get for free." (See, K-Fed, that was your first mistake.)

Murdoch: Newspapers Must Stop Fearing Web [E&P]