Why The Virtual Liberal Silence On Murdoch's Bid For Wall Street Journal?
May 7, 2007 -- 11:37 AM EST // // Post a Comment
Suppose a billionaire megalomaniac and avowed GOP partisan with a known history of turning news organs into propaganda outlets for his chosen political party was on the verge of taking over one of the most influential and respected newspapers in the world.
The liberal blogosphere and left-leaning opinion leaders would raise a huge stink and launch an aggressive, all-out campaign to try to stop it from happening, right? Well, no.
As you know (or perhaps you don't), Rupert Murdoch is very aggressively trying to buy The Wall Street Journal over the objections of the Bancroft family, which is the Dow Jones Company's controlling shareholder, and against the wishes of the staff, which has launched a campaign to persuade the family to stand firm in its opposition to Murdoch's takeover. But the reaction on the left, unless I'm missing something, has been strikingly limited.
Some business-writer types have argued that Murdoch is just the thing business-wise for The Journal. But that's an absurdly narrow way to look at what's happening. What matters a heck of a lot more is the potential takeover's possible implications for our politics, our journalistic standards, and the quality of our discourse. For people interested in such soft-headed and peripheral matters, a Murdoch takeover could be a potential disaster in the making.
Liberal bloggers and other leading left-leaning commentators have been very aggressively taking on Fox News of late, exerting pressure on Democrats to shun Fox and deny it the credibility it craves and doesn't deserve. These efforts are showing some successes. But shouldn't folks be equally revved up by the fact that the owner of the very same Fox News now wants to get his hands on one of the most prestigious journalistic institutions in the world?
There are several reasons for the lack of liberal response here. One is that for various reasons The Journal simply isn't on the radar of liberal bloggers and media-critic types the way The New York Times, The Washington Post and the cable chat shows are. Another reason is that I think that when the family came out recently and opposed the takeover, many breathed a sigh of relief and considered the story over. But it isn't over -- at all. Murdoch's takeover bid is very much alive, and he's upping his bid to ratchet up pressure on the family. He even has begun to reveal bits about his plans for the paper.
In an extended interview Murdoch gave to The Times a few days back that attracted surprisingly little attention among lib opinionmaking types, he said the following:
“I’m sometimes frustrated by the long stories,” he said, adding that he rarely gets around to finishing some articles.The editorial pages? He likes them but would like to see more political coverage in the news pages. “I might put more emphasis on Washington,” he said.
Those "long stories" presumably are the magazine-like front-page pieces -- known as "leders" in Journal parlance -- that have become a journalistic institution. But the paper's potential next owner is "frustrated" by them. Can we agree that this is somewhat ominous? And Murdoch's suggestion that he might put more "emphasis" on Washington is similarly suggestive.
In the interview, Murdoch did say that "he would propose to the Bancrofts setting up a separate board for the newspaper, mandated with ensuring its editorial independence, as he has done since he acquired The Times and Sunday Times in 1981," The Times reports. But he also said this:
And while he said he wouldn’t take a hands-on approach, he said, “I think I’d be around the place — not every day. After all, it’s going to be News Corporation money and I’d be grossly negligent if I didn’t take a close interest."
In another development in this story that's worthy of our attention, the Journal's staff is quietly organizing a full-fledged revolt against the possible Murdoch takeover. As Journal staff reporter Jesse Drucker (full disclosure: He and I worked together at The New York Observer some time ago) wrote in an email to colleagues that was leaked to the press:
As some of you know, there is a movement afoot to appeal directly, via letter, to each of the Bancroft family members that sit on our board. I am urging you to take part in this. The Bancrofts are under tremendous pressure to accept News Corp's offer, and that pressure will only become greater in the likely event that Murdoch raises his bid. The fact they have opposed it so far indicates that they are committed to maintaining the quality of The Wall Street Journal and all of Dow Jones' publications and products -- despite their opportunity to profit tremendously from accepting the offer.
This campaign seems like the sort of thing that the folks who rallied to get Dems to reject Fox would get behind, too, in order to shore up the Bancrofts' resolve not to let Murdoch through the door.
The common refrain among Journal staffers is that this takeover could be disastrous for journalism because while everyone knows the New York Post and Fox are at their worst little more than GOP house organs, if Murdoch were to remake The Journal similarly it would stamp the paper's respectability on similarly rank propaganda. Staffers are also frustrated at the narrowness of the business-oriented coverage of the impending takeover -- they wonder why the coverage is focused primarily on the potential financial implications, rather than on broader questions about whether such a deal would be good for journalism as a whole.
Look, I have no idea what if anything Murdoch would do to The Journal. But here's a question for bloggers, readers and others: Shouldn't the mere possibility that Murdoch might remake such an influential newspaper in his own image worthy of paying some more attention to?
Update: Salon has weighed in, as has Reed Hundt at TPM Cafe. More here. My point is that the reaction has been disproportionately mute given the obvious potential importance of this story.
Update II: Let's keep in mind that while the Journal Op ed page tends to be nothing but a vessel for laughably dishonest winger propaganda, the news pages are the thing in danger -- and as commenter Crust notes, they are very much worth fighting to preserve. That's what we're talking about here.
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