Success Quote by Sumner Redstone

Redstone’s candor lands because it’s delivered like a casual aside, then detonates: newspapers are “dying,” full stop, and the only question is whether the corpse will still be twitching in a decade. It’s not a media critique from the outside; it’s the cooler appraisal of a dealmaker who sees industries as curves on a chart. “Slow growth” is the polite term that lets him sound analytical while making a moral decision: don’t invest in institutions that can’t scale.

The sharper subtext is the split between personal habit and corporate strategy. “I read newspapers every day” signals cultural literacy, even a kind of old-world civic routine. Then he undercuts it with the investor’s verdict: he can love the product and still bet against the business. That contradiction is the point. Redstone is performing the modern executive’s posture: nostalgia in private, disruption in public.

The Murdoch name-drop is doing extra work. It’s both a credential (“I’m informed”) and a nod to power blocs within media. Saying he even reads Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal implies he can stomach an ideological rival because information is valuable regardless of its branding. It also frames newspapers not as guardians of democracy but as premium inputs for elites, a briefing document for people making moves.

Context matters: this is the late-20th/early-21st-century media shakeout, when conglomerates chased cable and film margins while print advertising began its long collapse. Redstone isn’t predicting journalism’s irrelevance; he’s declaring capital’s exit, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.