Disquiet and Worse about Murdoch
Greg Sargent wonders why liberals are relatively quiet about Murdoch's bid to gobble up Dow Jones and the WSJ. I don't think we're quiet, I think we're (a) dazzled but unsurprised, (b) appalled, and (c) jaded. How obvious could it be that Murdoch with a major world newspaper in his clutches is a more dangerous Murdoch with yet more propaganda ops than anyone else in the world?
Speaking for myself, I mouthed off to a New York Crain's Business reporter who was pursuing the story of the Journal's delay in publishing knowledge of the impending bid to this effect: "Imagine what happens if Murdoch owns The Wall Street Journal....Murdoch is generally understood, even by himself, as an interventionist, an active - hands on publisher." That was to keep it polite.
Given the laissez-faire atmosphere that prevails now, we're reduced to rooting for the independence-mindedness of the Bancroft family. One Journal editorial page is enough. A whole forest of them, daily, makes the burden of truth all the heavier to carry.
Rupert can't make the WSJ Editorials any more right wing than they are. I fear his turning the news reporting division, which does some great work, into another FOX or Washington Times, which he no doubt will.
FOX seems to be at war with MSNBC and CNN, I wonder if newspaper wars are coming.
"liberal media" my ass.
May 9, 2007 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe liberals are being cold and calculating. Maybe they see a silver lining in a News Corp-Dow Jones deal: we can only hope that Murdoch actually undermines the credibility of the Journal knowing full well that the Journal's investigative journalism over the past two to three decades, particularly in the area of corporate corruption, has been robust. Maybe liberals would rather see the right-wing lose one of its most articulate mouthpieces despite the bad consequences for reporting on corporate corruption.
May 9, 2007 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hadn't noticed that much quiet either, and in the mainstream press, at least The Times has covered this extensively. We've had some posts here, and I've seen others as well, between Yglesias and Drum, I believe. I'm a little disturbed by how many are so jaded here at TPM, to think Murdoch won't make a difference. But I can understand if people are jaded in another sense: that since we don't know how to block the deal, we have trouble putting it on the political or activist agenda.
Restoring regulation of broadcast TV would be nice, though, although different.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
May 9, 2007 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
This was a game to increase the balance in his offshore accounts. The "family" would NEVER give up control of that company.
May 9, 2007 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am bit puzzled what is there to do? It is not just laissez faire but the 1st Amendment also plays a role here. It will be a shame if Murdoch buys the WSJ just as it caused me to stop reading the NY Post but what can be done?
Daniel A. Greenbaum
May 9, 2007 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't worry about this one... He'll never own it.
But watch all the insider trading arrests from this little financial game..
May 9, 2007 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
My own reaction was pretty much the same as JohnW's:
1) The WSJ oped couldnt' get any crazier
2) The pro-WSJ argument was always that their newspages were among the best. I don't read it, and they hide the online version behind a pay wall, so I don't know for sure, but I haven't seen their reporting draw much attention over the last few years
3) Murdoch and his drones already, as far as I'm concerned, run the MSM via the Coulter/O'Reilly/Hume>>Mathews/Russert/Broder>>everybody else continuum.
So I guess you can count me under "jaded"
May 9, 2007 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's some of all of these.
(1) The WSJ editorial page is already a consistent pack of lies, often worse than Fox News, and it's also usually fascist, even more so than Fox News. Murdoch buying the paper would actually reduce its credibility in the public (and businessman!) eye, which could only be good.
(2) It's not clear that there's any way to interfere in such a deal.
(3) The excellent WSJ news team probably would decline -- but unfortuntely they're *already* being corrupted by interference from the editorial page. It's not clear that this degeneration is avoidable in any case.
(4) It doesn't seem likely that the deal will actually go through.
May 9, 2007 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with Gitlin. I can't imagine why Sargent is surprised. I will feel a mild regret that WSJ business coverage will probably be trashed. It has always been very good. I will also miss some of the excellent journalism that has been done there. However, there are now many outlets for good business journalism. The Economist, Financial Times, Bloomberg, even McClatchy. Even if you are a liberal, these are solid business news sources. You don't have to agree with them to get good information out of them. It's true they are expensive, but so is the Journal. Since I've always found the WSJ editorial page an utter waste of time, I can't imagine Murdoch can possibly make it worse. I never watch business TV, on the theory that anything they are sharing with a bajillion people will have no hard news value anyway. Again, they are all trash, and Murdoch won't be any different. If Dow and the family decide to sell out to Murdoch they deserve their fate.
Diana Witt
May 9, 2007 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am personally untroubled by a Murdoch-owned WSJ. The only danger seems to be that the journalistic priorities of the news sections might change and he might interfere with some important investigative work. This indeed might happen. But it seems unlikely, or at least it seems unlikely that such interference will be very significant in terms of the paper's overall coverage.
The Journal isn't a consumer newspaper like the other News Corp. properties. It isn't going to boost circulation by making the kinds of changes that happened at, for instance, The Times of London. The Journal's core readership of business executives isn't likely to respond to the tarting up or dumbing down of the paper. If the paper deviates from its core mission of providing the best business and financial coverage, it will die very quickly. Murdoch surely knows this and so the urge to tinker will be reduced.
This is not to say that there will be no changes. But it seems doubtful that the changes will be significant enough to seriously impact the core function of the paper.
May 9, 2007 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's funny that this has happened a few months after I started getting the "mini Wall Street Journal," as I call it, at work.
For all the fretting that Murdoch will gut the investigative teams or change the news content of the paper, nobody's seemed to notice that the current owners shrunk the paper's size and reduced its content.
One could argue that Murdoch might be a better steward than the Bancroft's have been. Murdoch does, for all his faults, really love newspapers.
Also, Murdoch's done great stuff online and the WSJ has one of the only profitable subscription sites on the web. Murdoch might be able to do great things with it.
I'm not uncritical of Murdoch by any means but I always try to remember that for everything that irks me about the guy, News Corp has consistently produced movies, television programs and media that I like. The Times of London is still a very smart paper, you know. And, this is the guy that brought us "The Simpsons..."
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
May 9, 2007 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
The results of a Murdoch take-over of the WSJ might ultimately be a Financial Blog, analogous to what TPM is doing on the political side.
Most financial journals are full of spin and BS anyway -- they are all stock peddlers. Watch Squawk Box on MSNBC if you don't believe me. A financial blog that uncovered the truth of what is going on in the financial world would be very welcome. It might even have forewarned us of the Enron and World Com fiascos. Given the tremendous economic and political power of the Corporations, a financially-oriented blog would be a great thing.
May 9, 2007 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
BlueInColorada writes: I haven't seen their reporting draw much attention over the last few years.
WSJ reporters won two Pulitzer prizes this year including one for breaking and reporting on the options-backdating scandal which must be the largest business story of the last year.
May 9, 2007 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I write for one of their competitors. They still set the standard and we all know it. Those guys are good. And every WSJ reporter I've ever met has impressed me.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
May 9, 2007 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
He'll do anything that makes him money. The basis of his 'conservative' fortune are trashy papers that, in Australia and Britain, have a pair of good-looking women's breasts on page 3 or whatever - every day. Makes it easy to sell papers to idiots, eh?
He and/or his minions seem to have noticed that hip, sexy, edgy stuff like 'The simpsons," and, apparently, 'Lost,' makes lots of money. They love it when it's their production and they're selling it. Murdoch himself apparently hates it when liberal-biased reality interferes with his right-wing fantasies, fantasies which Murdoch himself is doing as much as anyone to undermine by his own relentless application of late-stage capitalist destruction.
I used to subscribe to The Economist for the world news, but Murdoch did get 50% of that and their quality and independence did decline. I've been using Dow Jones publication Barrons online for more perspectives on things financial for a reasonable price and at least having a range of opinions in each issue, and I had just paid my subscription which was a hassle because they insist on taking it out of your bank account on their timing, but I was and am ready to cancel if the Bancrofts sell out, even if I lose my eighty bucks. Thanks for reminding me of Bloomberg, there's a lot for free on their public website already.
May 9, 2007 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Probably because the left is so quiet about so many things they should care about..
For example, the hypocrisy of remaining silent about George Soros purchasing 62 million dollars worth of Halliburton, so he could profit from the exploitation of our troops and the deaths of Iraqis.
The cruelty of demanding that the issue of the poverty and suffering faced by millions of American citizens, and the hypocrisy of the left that wants to redefine social justice so that the term doesn't have to apply to the issues of poverty, worker rights, etc..
May 9, 2007 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: the hypocrisy of the left that wants to redefine social justice so that the term doesn't have to apply to the issues of poverty, worker rights, etc..
Just who on the Left wants exclude poverty and workplace rights from the concept of social justice? I see a big old strawman here, bedecked with red herrings.
May 9, 2007 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Huh? Rupert Murdoch does not own any portion of The Economist. For something like 80 years, it's been 50% owned by the Financial Times, which in turn is owned by Pearson Group.
May 9, 2007 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. Rupert is the ultimate overreaching hog, and his empire will be broken up by the next administration. Revenge is sweet.
May 9, 2007 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Check out the other 50%, Brad. I don't have the references to hand, yet I believe I'm right and the Economist used to acknowlege it in their coverage.
May 9, 2007 7:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
The ownership structure of The Economist:
Curiously, another famous British newspaper is also owned by a trust. The Guardian (and Observer) has been wholy owned by the Scott Trust for decades. This has certainly allowed it to maintain its long tradition of objective editorial independence.
May 9, 2007 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are three possible ways out of this mess.
One is to hope that the business community understands its self-interest sufficiently that if Murdoch intervenes in the news side of the paper, it will switch subscriptions en masse to Bloomberg or other non-ideological business reporting services. This is not much of a solution, though; Bloomberg and Reuters don't do the kinds of investigative reporting the WSJ does.
On the other hand, two types of government intervention could be imagined:
2. Re-regulating the media industry to prevent the formation of large conglomerates (a return to the pre-Reagan standard).
3. Writing the three-way wall between the editorial page, ownership, and the news division at media organs into legislation, perhaps through the tax code (preferential treatment for news organs which provide a public service by objectively reporting important news to citizens).
I'm kind of intrigued by solution 3. This has been, to date, a self-instituted professional ethic in the journalistic community, but people like Murdoch push the issue to the point where it may be time for the government to step in.
Accumulating Peripherals
May 9, 2007 11:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since the non-liberal Media and even it's out and out Fascist propaganda arms like Murdoch’s Fox News have decided to elect Hillary and likely together with big corporate bucks will, I sort of doubt that Hillary gal's administration will touch Murdoch's well upholstered arse. However this unholy alliance certainly has set the right and the left buzzing.
May 10, 2007 4:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
George Soros either did or did not purchase millions of dollars of Halliburton stock that is easy to establish. And 65 extra large will not begin to establish a block that will challenge Halliburton’s corporate policies.
As to the second remark, it is possible that could be strawman argument and smell of red herring; however I haven’t noticed the Limo-Liberals roosting the national headquarters of the Democratic Party loosing much sleep over rank and file working class Democrats’ slide into the lower economic classes as they get richer. Ergo, the poster could be a good Republican or just a dissatisfied and feeling screwed Democrat. You been reading his mail or something to that effect? Or maybe the poster is just one more good citizen getting fed up with a Plutocracy trying to establish a one party state with that party having a Republican and Democratic wing at the beck and call of that Plutocracy. Who knows?
May 10, 2007 4:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's true in my case I didn't post a comment on the blog on the frontpage of TPM Cafe on this as I couldn't think of anything to comment on, other than I sure wish Ted Turner hadn't merged CNN with AOL, as he is the media mogul on our side, but buying Always Over Loaded darn near bankrupted him.
May 10, 2007 5:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Most of us out here in the real world don't read the Wall Street Journal because it ain't got no pictures or sports...except for the occassional horse racing or agents are getting more money story.. And unless they have one of their draaaawings of Billy Buckley, they ain't got no comics either....
May 10, 2007 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the WSJ goes, the answer's simple: The Financial Times.
Sure, they're neolib free-traders to the core, but they're also British, which places them to the left of center in today's American political spectrum (even if they are kind of Tory-lite by U.K. standards), their world news, especially the Europe page, is excellent, and their editorials and opinion pages are, unlike the WSJ, not batshit insane and actually somewhat engaging and interesting. Gideon Rachman in particular is pretty good, as is Phillip Stephens, though a bit too Blairite for me.
On the other hand, Wolfgang Munchau's most recent column about private equity/financial markets/labor in the German economy are almost always pretty dry, but, at least, reality-based. And John Kay is a twit.
But on the whole it's quite a good paper.
Ben Cronin
May 11, 2007 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink