"As a journalist and avid reader of The Wall Street Journal," writes O. Casey Corr on MSNBC.com, "I feel pressure to join the chorus of handwringers about the pending sale of Dow Jones to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp."

Preach it to us, baby!

Corr, we're going to say right off, is an apologist.

He doesn't heed the warnings of others – "Murdoch is a corrupter. He interferes. He converts his newsrooms into machines to serve his rapacious business interests. His tabloids run photos of naked women on Page 3. He coarsens the discourse of American democracy." – and instead concludes Rupert is just "more a symptom than a disease." After all, Rupert didn't start media consolidation. He just exploited it.

In many respects, he’s done some good in the industry. He’s revived dying newspapers — and preserved jobs in an industry roiled daily by layoffs. He expanded regional coverage of sports. The competitive presence of DirecTV helped pressure nervous cable companies to invest billions of dollars to accelerate service improvements, such as phone service. Fox has given us some great TV shows including “The Simpsons,” “X Files” and “24,” not to mention the guilty pleasure of “American Idol.”

I sometimes watch Fox News and have little doubt that its reporting tilts right, sometimes shamelessly. Bill O’Reilly is a windbag. But I have a problem when people blame Murdoch for the downfall of broadcast journalism. Look at CNN, where Lou Dobbs pursues a largely anti-immigration agenda. Or MSNBC, where you have Keith Olbermann calling for Bush to resign and stoking a feud with O’Reilly. And if dignity is a concern, who let MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson do “Dancing with the Stars?”

So the thinking goes: If everyone else is doing it, even to considerably lesser degrees, Murdoch shouldn't take the brunt of all the criticism. The Bancrofts deserve their own share; after all, who do you think is pocketing all that cash and allowing Murdoch to perpetuate the problem that he didn't start?

Thought so.