Murdoch says average families suffering, plans to raise newspaper prices

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Media overlord Rupert Murdoch said late last night that the U.S. was in for 18 months of rough economic times, with rising unemployment and dwindling disposable income for average families.

Fortunately for Murdoch’s News Corp., though, the recently acquired Wall Street Journal targets the most affluent and best educated Americans, who can be charged much more.

‘The average [annual] subscription for the Wall Street Journal is $125. At the New York Times, it’s $500. There’s a long way to go in getting money from our readers,’ Murdoch said during a wide-ranging onstage interview at D: All Things Digital, a conference being held in Carlsbad, Calif., by the Journal.

Murdoch plans to challenge the New York Times in general news and world news as well as turn the Journal into more of a mainstream national paper. He said he had changed his mind and would continue charging for access to some financial news online while making more of it available free on ad-supported sites.

He also said he would continue to invest in journalism at News Corp.’s prize properties while newsroom jobs are cut at most other papers, including Tribune Co.’s L.A. Times, which Murdoch called...

... ‘the most difficult paper in the U.S.’ for an owner because of language and geography issues.

Murdoch said the economy was suffering in part because of massive oil importing, a problem he would fight with more drilling off the Pacific Coast and in Alaska.

‘We didn’t buy Alaska to save a couple of elk,’ Murdoch said, although he probably doesn’t know firsthand. The best available evidence shows that Murdoch wasn’t alive at the time of that purchase, in 1867.

Murdoch got more approval from the technology-oriented crowd when he called the educational system a disgrace and praised Democratic contender Barack Obama’s written plan for fixing it.

He predicted Obama would be elected president, perhaps in ‘a tidal wave’ sweeping out Republican incumbents.

-- Joseph Menn