Tag: Rupert Murdoch

The Bancrofts and the Benjamins

Barring a miracle, Rupert Murdoch will take over the Wall Street Journal later this week, when his latest offer is presented to the Bancroft family. (Journal coverage here; New York Times coverage here.)

For all the disingenuous talk about the Bancrofts’ holding out because of their deep, deep concern for journalistic integrity, it all comes down, as usual, to the Benjamins. The Washington Post’s Frank Ahrens reports:

Dow Jones had pushed for Murdoch to raise his $60-per-share bid by $2 to $3 per share, an amount that had come to be known as a “tip” to help placate the Bancrofts, the family that controls Dow Jones. The majority of them instantly rejected Murdoch’s bid when it became public.

A tip. Well, here’s another tip — the editorial independence agreement that has been worked out over the past few weeks will prove not to be worth the paper it’s written on.

The Journal will probably continue to be an excellent newspaper, although it may cease to be great. This isn’t about ideology — its nutty editorial page may actually move slightly to the left, as Murdoch is far more interested in power than in politics. Rather, this is about a profit-crazed, meddling shark smelling blood in the water and moving in for the kill.

Here’s a roundup of commentaries by Jack Shafer of Slate, who’s been particularly good on this subject. I especially like “Murdoch: The Filth and the Fury,” an overview of how he destroyed the New York Post despite making explicit promises not to.

Murdoch is a good steward only in the sense that he’s not overly concerned with cost-cutting — he’s far more likely to subsidize the Journal so that it will remain a suitable adjunct to his Fox Business Channel, set to debut on Oct. 15.

I don’t mean to be too nostalgic. Obviously the news business is falling apart, and we’re going to witness all kinds of unimaginable events before someone figures out how to put together a new, very different model.

But this is a sad day for journalism. At the very least, if managing editor Marcus Brauchli has any tough stories on China in the can, he’d better run them in the next day or two.

Photo (cc) by Paolo! Some rights reserved.

No right-wing rag

One of the great myths of journalism is that the Wall Street Journal is a conservative paper. To be sure, its editorial page is the most relentlessly right-wing and conspiracy-obsessed in the country. Its editors’ indifference to the truth was memorably cited in the suicide note of Vincent Foster, an associate of Hillary Clinton’s who’d become caught up in the non-existent “Clinton scandals.”

But the Journal’s news pages are run completely independently from the opinion operation, and are widely regarded as the pinnacle of careful reporting and graceful writing. Barney Kilgore, who virtually created the modern Journal, is even credited with inventing the “news feature,” a form that we take for granted today.

As for politics, a 2005 UCLA study found the Journal’s news operation to be more liberal than that of any major U.S. media outlet, including the New York Times. Now, I don’t know about that. But, clearly, when you hear someone say that it doesn’t matter if Rupert Murdoch wins control of the Journal because it’s already a right-wing rag, you can be sure that person doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

But why would Murdoch interfere with the Journal if he’s successful in his bid to purchase the paper and its parent company, Dow Jones, for $5 billion? Doesn’t he know that the Journal represents the gold standard in American journalism, and that he’d be crazy to mess with it?

Uh, get real. No, he might not be drag its news coverage to the right, or turn it into a screaming tabloid like his New York Post. But the reason he’s willing to pay so much for it is that he thinks he’s smarter than its current owners, the Bancroft family. And, in fact, he probably is smarter than the Bancrofts, if by “smarter” you mean better at maximizing its economic potential. Why should he spend $5 billion just to leave it alone, especially if he is firmly convinced that he can make it better?

In an interview with the Times today, Murdoch makes it clear that he can’t wait to start interfering with the Journal. He thinks the stories are too long. He thinks the news section should feature more political coverage. He would consider starting a Journal-branded weekend glossy magazine. He insists that he’s not planning deep cuts, but adds, “I’m not saying it’s going to be a holiday camp for everybody.” Oh, no. You can be sure of that.

If Murdoch is successful, it would be a disaster. And, at this point, it looks like he stands a good chance of pulling this off.

The Fox Street Journal

So Rupert Murdoch wants to buy the Wall Street Journal. This might prove to be as futile as Jack Welch’s bid to buy the Boston Globe from the New York Times Co.: the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones, the Journal’s parent company, is reportedly opposed. But this certainly raises some questions, doesn’t it? Here are a few:

  • If Murdoch succeeds, he’s really not stupid enough to wreck one of the great brands in journalism, is he?
  • But can he help himself?
  • Is the Journal’s nutty editorial page too right-wing even for Murdoch? By contrast, the Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard is a model of moderate sobriety.
  • Could Neil Cavuto have tugged his forelock any more obsequiously in his Fox News interview with Murdoch?
  • Does Murdoch know he could also wind up owning the Cape Cod Times, the New Bedford Standard-Times and other community papers? Will he drop by for a visit? Will he stop the bleeding?

And here’s some completely unfounded speculation. Dow Jones stock has underperformed for years, and at least some factions of the Bancroft family have reportedly pushed for a sale from time to time.

It’s possible that the moment for that sale has arrived, and that previous talks involving the Times Co. and the Washington Post Co. will be revived. Murdoch may have offered such a huge premium in order to get something done quickly and pre-empt other buyers. But given the Bancrofts’ initial reaction, he may already have failed.

Update: From the New York Observer: “‘It’s out of the frying pan and into a thermonuclear blast,’ said one Journal staffer. ‘This was the worst-case scenario — other than being sold to Vladimir Putin.'”