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Robert Thomson on truth, trust and tech

  • Date recorded: 16 Apr 2019

  • Duration: 21:54

There is no doubt that our technical ability to create, to distribute and share information and images and much more will be exponentially enhanced over the coming five years. But that is the contradiction. While we are creating that capability, we are challenging our capacity for empathy.

– Robert Thomson

About this video

Watch the 2019 Keith Murdoch Oration presented by the Chief Executive of News Corporation, Robert Thomson, on truth, trust and technology.

In this wide-ranging discussion, Robert looks at our digital world and the secularism, mob mentality and lack of empathy that represents the cost of our raised collective consciousness.

He considers the future laws that will need to be passed to cope with new technologies such as 5G, and the impact on countries such as China, India and Indonesia that are combining their Industrial Revolution with the Digital Revolution. He also looks at the new relationship between Beijing and Washington, which represents a crucial shift in axis.

About the speaker

Robert Thomson is Chief Executive of News Corporation. Robert started his career as a copyboy at the Herald in Melbourne before moving to the Sydney Morning Herald. With an illustrious career spanning five decades, Robert has held a number of senior international editorial positions, at the Times of London, the US edition of the Financial Times, and the Weekend FT.

A published author, he assumed his current role in 2013, having served as editor-in-chief of Dow Jones & Company and managing editor of the Wall Street Journal from 2008.