For the last couple of weeks, I have been trying to whip up a little sympathy for all those lovers of the Wall Street Journal who are dreading the paper’s takeover by Rupert Murdoch.
After all, the WSJ is a revered institution of the fifth estate.
Yeah, and that and 2 bucks will get you a dozen donuts.
But mostly, I’ve come up dry. I mean, what is everyone so afraid of? That the WSJ will become a right-leaning newspaper? That they will make editorial decisions based on dollars instead of, you know, whatever vague, do-good notions about journalistic…ahem, integrity that the other big papers claim, with mostly straight faces, to be operating under these days?
Please.
The WSJ has always operated under one premise: money rules. And if money is what you love, then forgive me for not getting all misty-eyed when your journalistic baby ends up sacrificed on the altar of profit.
Besides, we all know what their little hissy fit is really about, anyway.
Murdoch’s not classy enough for them. And they’re afraid that he will take their baby and tart it up like he did The Sun and the NY Post. Maybe by this time next year the WSJ will feature big-boobed Page 3 girls, rendered in the WSJ’s trademark tasteful line drawings, of course.
The WSJ has always been the paper you simply must have delivered to your office, and tucked under your arm at lunch, and have carelessly flung upon the gleaming surface of your darling little Phillipe Starck coffee table, if you wish to be accepted as belonging to the ranks of the American nobility. How will the monied advance beyond nouveau riche, if Murdoch turns the WSJ into the ink-and-paper version of Fox News?
If you ask me, that’s what all the hand-wringing is really about. Yes, everybody on Wall Street wants to trumpet Murdoch as their favorite self-made tycoon, but nobody wants him actually picking out their china pattern.
For the last couple of weeks, I have been trying to whip up a little sympathy for all those lovers of the Wall Street Journal who are dreading the paper’s takeover by Rupert Murdoch. 
5 comments:
Ha ha. You are exactly right. Rupert will now be farting and belching at their dinner table, and they won't be able to ask him to leave.
I really don't know what media to trust anymore. Bill Moyers? He seems pretty decent.
Larry: Is that actual farting and belching, or metaphorical farting and belching? Or both?
SkyDad: Ah, Bill Moyers. He got a little new age-y in the late 80s, but he is back now and still awesome.
Line drawings of girls in the WSJ! Funny!
Mordoch presents a danger to the free press as we have known it. When are the rest of the media going to start attacking his excesses? Is this just another stepping stone?
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