A year ago this month, wedding ring misplacer Rupert Murdoch had set his sights on Dow Jones & Co. and its Wall Street Journal newspaper, successfully clearing the bid with shareholders and leading up to the December closing. At the time, media speculators trashed Murdoch, accusing him of looking to the Journal not to improve its credentials, but to add it his enormous empire of political and business influence. But Wall Street wasn't on board with that scenario; instead, they nudged Murdoch on.
It's a very difference scenario today.
The press is defending Murdoch; even Jack Shafer has nice things to say about his stewardship of the Journal. Meanwhile, Wall Street has trounced News Corp.' stock; it hovers around $14, or 40 percent less than its 52-week high. Something about the instability of the print media market, and Murdoch's insistence on subsidizing any losses with big gains made elsewhere. And then there's the whole Dow Jones part of the equation; where does that thing fit in with, say, MySpace? And what about Murdoch's tendency to treat financial weaknesses in other media companies as a chance to snap 'em up on the cheap? So, so many concerns, this deserves an exposé! CONTINUED »
Reuters is more than happy to report Rupert Murdoch's Dow Jones is killing off its agreement with the Associated Press after more than a year over haggling on price points. Though the Wall Street Journal will still carry AP copy, every other pub will switch to the French wire Agence France-Presse. Even news can be outsourced overseas.
If Hugo Restall, editor of Dow Jones' Far Eastern Economic Review, really never intended to embarrass bossman Rupert Murdoch by even mentioning the book Rupert's adventures in China: How Murdoch lost a fortune and found a wife, why did he commission a review for it? Might the sequence of events we've been led to believe BE SUSPECT? [Guardian]
Rupert Murdoch, who has little intention to make WSJ.com entirely free, has made known his intention to move his tony newspaper's HQ out of Manhattan's Financial District by the end of the year. Under a plausible scenario, editorial operations would move inside News Corp.'s Midtown building, while Dow Jones' business affairs would stay downtown. Where is there room inside 1211 Sixth Avenue to house the Journal's entire news staff? Good question, but job cuts might help solve the space crunch!
One Small Step For Mankind, One Giant Step Towards World Domination: "Shareholders holding 60.27% of Dow Jones's voting stock on Thursday approved the company's $60 a share sale to News Corp.," writes the WSJ, "clearing the way for the $5.6 billion deal to close. Rupert Murdoch already is putting his execs in key positions, and more changes are expected in the weeks ahead." Which is really a diplomatic (read: Murdoch-owned publication) way of saying "Half of us will be fired, the other half will quit in protest."
Rupert Murdoch (a.k.a. "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas Cheer/Corporate Sponsored Drink-Ups") has evidently elected to wait until the shareholders officially approve News Corp.'s acquisition of Dow Jones before including WSJers in the annual office holiday fete. Left out of Friday's semi-mandatory corporation outing, finance-y scribes evidently threw themselves a smaller party, involving pizza, cheap booze and a location extremely close to home: their insufferable work cubicles.
"I thought we were the crown jewel," moaned one [WSJ] staffer, who sent [NYMag's Intelligencer] this haiku summing up the festivities:
Make merry, they said. / Cake. Cookies. Juice. Soda cans. / But we ate at our desks.
That extra syllable in the last line? It stands for extra despair.
One week before Rupert Murdoch officially owns Dow Jones, CEO Rich Zannino announced his salt-and-pepper mane is resigning. As if he'll be the last! Then he picks up a $30 million severance package. News Corp.'s own Les Hinton will assume the role. [AdAge]
Zannino's memo to colleagues below. CONTINUED »
CNBC, perhaps wiser to today's launch of Fox Business Channel than News Corp. itself, arranged a while back to snag exclusive online ad deals with the Dow Jones-owned MarketWatch.com and WSJ.com.
Except those two websites are now owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., of course. And, suddenly savvy to the irony and ego slug of having CNBC ads blanket the homepage of MarketWatch.com, Dow Jones ad reps informed CNBC that, unfortunately, their ads would not be appearing.
No official reason was given, reports the Times, except that Dow Jones "retain[s] the right to adjust the precise placement and timing of online advertisements, including to accommodate links from other Web sites."
And it's not like Fox News has many flacks to spare these days. CONTINUED »
The stock market (finally) rallied today, with the Dow Jones industrial average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq jumping upwards of 1.4% apiece. Think we're completely out of the woods? Think again. The dollar traded near an all-time low versus the euro and oil prices closed at an all-time high. [CNNMoney]
"The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has given antitrust clearance for News Corp.'s $5 billion acquisition of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones," writes suddenly biased financial news source, Dow Jones.
Which is pretty much just a fancy way of saying that Murdoch's acquisition of Dow Jones is perfectly legal, despite being ethically dubious and "the worst thing to happen to journalism since Jayson Blair."
And that Murdoch is one step closer to taking over the world.
Several weeks after sealing the deal to purchase Dow Jones Co. (and thus, The Wall Street Journal) billionaire Rupert Murdoch finally catches on that all his prized reporters are running for the exits. So Murdoch does what anyone planning to delegitimize a once-revered financial news entity and transform it into a mouthpiece for his partisan right-wing politics would do—he calls up three top reporters and politely "asks" them to stay. Needless to say, reactions were mixed, which is to say, "predictably split along party lines." Sez the LA Times:
Some journalists in the newsroom took the gesture as a sign of Murdoch's commitment to keep the staff's quality high. Others said it showed that Murdoch would take a hands-on approach in newsroom affairs despite a special committee established to keep him from interfering in coverage.
Personal politics aside, however, everyone at WSJ agreed the the "gesture" could be summed up in a single word: creepy.
Dow Jones VP Paul Ingrassia has announced his resignation—and so soon after Rupert Murdoch's arrival! "That's completely unrelated," swears Ingrassia, before waving his briefcase, Jerry Maguire-style and yelling, "NOW, WHO'S COMING WITH ME?" [Reuters]
Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff scores a "high six-figure" book deal to write the biography of Rupert Murdoch.
The bio will focus heavily on Murdoch's $5 billion takeover of Dow Jones, but will also touch upon Murdoch's early life, and chronicle his gradual descent into evil despotdom.
[NYP]
'Rupert Murdoch isn't as bad as you think he is,' explains unbiased party Rupert Murdoch, in a self-promotional confessional to The Guardian (UK).
"The Wall Street Journal is the greatest newspaper in America and one of the greatest in the world," said Mr Murdoch, insisting that he would be hiring - rather than firing - staff. The paper had "tremendous" journalists and a valuable brand. "That's why we put such a premium on it and why I spent the better part of the last three months enduring criticism normally levelled at a genocidal tyrant."
Another explanation for all the new Murdoch hires? The vast number of open positions at WSJ, as a result of the mass exodus. Which was, in turn, facilitated by the sale of Dow Jones.
To a genocidal tyrant.
• Apparently unsatisfied with the legal battles waged against his brother, daughter and son, Sumner Redstone also plans to slap his wife with divorce papers.
• Bourne Ultimatum rakes in $70.1 or $69 million in its opening weekend, depending on how much you care.
• Rupert Murdoch promises: "I won't meddle any more than [NYT publisher] Arthur Sulzberger does." In other words, we're all screwed.
Editorial Director
