Amit Varma [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: <I agree with Kiran and the Economist piece. WSJ's brand value will be diluted if its editorial focus or quality changes. Murdoch, all said and done, is a businessman first, and he won't do something that's bad for business. Fox was a smart business move; turning WSJ into Fox would be brand suicide. There's no way he'll do that.>
That's a good point. Murdoch will always put business first. I chose the wrong example to illustrate my actual concern. To clarify, I am not worried that WSJ will become a Republican mouthpiece - it might be argued that any publication named after the mecca of financial capitalism could not be anything other than right wing (in an economic sense, anyway). The point is, I can't recall any instances of a media company taken over by Murdoch that showed an upswing in editorial quality, independence, and journalistic ethics after the event. He is notoriously hands-on, consistently preferring editors that he can dictate to. I cannot recall any instance where the editorial standards of a Murdoch-purchased publication improved (in my admittedly subjective judgement), either through greater objectivity/balanced coverage or less tabloid-like focus. I can point to many examples where the reverse occurred. The biggest concern I have is that Murdoch consistently and ruthlessly uses the media he owns to advance his own business agenda: from campaigning against greater integration with the EU in the UK publications, to refusing to publish Chris Patten's book to keep the Chinese authorities happy. In the case of the WSJ, the Bancrofts have been relatively noninterventionist in terms of day-to-day operations: I am sceptical that this state of affairs will continue in the Murdoch regime. cheers, Divya
