Wall Street Journal Reportedly Marries Billionaire Murdoch After Long Affair (UPDATED)
WALL STREET JOURNAL MARRIES BILLIONAIRE AFTER LONG AFFAIR
UNDER CLINTON THERE WERE AFFAIRS, TOO
BILL O’REILLY COLUMN TO FOLLOW
We thought we’d leave some Rupert Murdoch style headlines to highlight this “exclusive” just out on The Business website announcing that sale of the venerable Dow Jones company has reportedly gone through to the controversial media maven.
THIS JUST IN! Dow Jones has denied the report and say the only agreement is on editorial independence.
From The Business report:
Rupert Murdoch has succeeded with his $5 billion bid for Dow Jones, owners of the Wall Street Journal, according to sources acting for the Dow Jones board. Negotiations have been completed and the board is confident the terms of the deal will be accepted by the Bancroft family, which controls a majority of voting shares in Dow Jones, over the next few days. A formal announcement is expected next week.
Murdoch’s News Corporation will take over America’s most prestigious financial publisher at the price he originally offered on April 17, when he proposed $60 a share when the stock was trading at $36, a 67% premium.
After lengthy talks involving many lawyers, the deal includes a legally-enforceable agreement with Murdoch which will supposedly guarantee the integrity and independence of the Wall Street Journal’s journalism.
According to the website, price wasn’t the issue. And nobody else wanted to beat Murdoch’s lucrative offer:
Younger members of the Bancroft family, who have no involvement in Dow Jones, pressured their relatives to accept the Murdoch offer and pocket the 67% premium, knowing that, in the absence of another buyer, the Dow Jones share price would plummet if no deal was done. Those Bancrofts more closely associated with the company have reluctantly concluded that they have no alternative but to sell to the 76-year-old Australian-American media mogul.
According to sources acting for Dow Jones in the negotiations, the deal was delayed until agreement was reached on a legally-binding undertaking by Murdoch to preserve the Wall Street Journal’s editorial independence.
The issue will be whether in the end any “legally-binding” agreement to preserve the Journal’s editorial independence pans out when it enters the realm of reality.
FOR MORE DETAILS BE SURE TO WATCH HANNITY AND COLMES
UPDATE:
FOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORT ON WHETHER IT HAS BEEN SOLD OR NOT WATCH SPECIAL REPORT WITH GERALDO RIVERA IN THE JOURNAL’S VAULT
Other News Stories:
Bancrofts: Dow Jones talks ‘not complete’
Story on Murdoch purchase of Wall Street Journal ‘incorrect
WSJ execs give cautious support to editorial deal
Dow Jones Pact Would Protect Three Top Editors
30 Responses to “Wall Street Journal Reportedly Marries Billionaire Murdoch After Long Affair (UPDATED)”
And the diversity of the American media shrinks ever more…
Editorial independence? As in the news section or the OpEd section? The OpEd section reads like Powerlines or Ace of Spades already. You have a newspaper wrapped around excrement and I assume it will stay the same way.
At least with the Journal, as opposed to nearly all liberal papers, magazines, and media broadcasts, there’s a distinction that can be made.
The always reliably far-far-far-far right wing DLS weighs in again with something Gush Limboob would be proud of.
Jim, please address the issue, not the person. Just because you disagree with DLS is not an excuse to attack him.
Your bartender should have cut you off long ago.
Just because you disagree with DLS is not an excuse to attack him.
Whenever the facts don’t meet his lefty expectations
and someone falls off the left-wing lock-step trail, he gets angry and chooses to engage in misconduct. He is irritating to more intelligent people when he does this; he is not alone. Many on the Left have been this way as far back as 1980. Th e Left frequently isn’t merely defensive, it is often reactionary, and anyone presenting facts that don’t fit their constellation of myths are subject to misconduct. The insults and lies such as we have seen from him here are commonplace under such circumstances.
That explains it, but of course never excuses what he and others do.
DLS, please don’t complete the cycle by coming back at them in-kind, especially after you’ve seen that I warned them. Even provocation by personal attack doesn’t justify personal attacks.
DLS- To be fair- both sides do what you are describing. Anytime I listen to Rush or Hannity- they always make every Democrat sound like a socialist, and describe them as far left- even moderates like Joe Biden or Steny Hoyer.
Businessmen that know Murdoch say he can’t help but put his personal stamp on every aspect of everything he owns.
That is scary, to me.
Why aren’t there limits on how much of the media can be owned by any one man or corporation?
That’s not true for all my postings, in fact nearly all. It’s not the same thing from me at all. I’m describing accurately how and why I am being attacked, and I defend myself legitimately. The bartender remark, same style, but also legitimate, unlike what was slung at me in the first place.
Fox is the only well-known mainstream media outlet (second generation like CNN = cable originally) that is not only tacky, but is not liberal, but often shows conservative bias instead.
That indicates a concern the Journal’s non-editorial section may become like the Washington Times if not more blatant and even strident. (Washington Times + NY Post)
Anti-trust shouldn’t cover so much market fraction (the forced breakup of Microsoft is not justified) as it should prohibit market rigging.
I would expect to see more consolidation in the future, not only in radio (which already has been subject to such a consolidation), but in print media, which is suffering due to more widespread use of the Internet to get up-to-date news, fast (so often by print media’s new news Web sites).
K. Ritter:
K.,
If you want to know, I tapered off and then stopped listening to these shows, except to visit once in a while out of curiosity, not so much because of inaccurate hyperbole that you described, but because I didn’t like the loud-mouth tone (Hannity, Boortz, Glenn Beck — even the others: once in DC I handed my radical friend some tissue while turning on Laura Ingraham so between FU-s, my friend could twist and tear the tissue as if it were Ingraham’s neck).
There’s a lot more distortion on the Left — anything to the right of the DLC-DNC or to the right of the RINOs in the Northeast like Specter, Snowe, Chafee is called “far right” and I’ve even seen “progressive” [sic] literature calling the Democratic Party (or at least its leadership) right of center — but yes, there is misconduct on the Right.
(Have you noticed that prior to elections, Limbaugh typically will operate in pure party-hack mode, and has done it earlier sometimes, such as when he savaged an admittedly deserving John McCain years ago? I didn’t agree with what Limbaugh did or why.)
Many of those shows I believe will face others like me who were simply amused or curious and are not going to be regular listeners, just samplers (as I’ve done with Air America where I used to live, as I was tapering off the right-side shows at the same time).
I believe they’ll all get as tired as Limbaugh’s show is. (It is for that reason that I have said that perhaps an election of Hillary Clinton will inject new life into Limbaugh’s show and he could retire on a higher note than he otherwise would. I suspect he may well retire soon.)
The only thing I’ll say about Hannity other than what I wrote earlier about the “man on the street” stuff in New York (asking pedestrians who the Vice President is, who the Secretary of State is, etc.), that is good, is that someday I hope you get to hear the Hannity April Fools’ Day stunt one year (it has been replayed on subsequent years) where he began by saying he had thought long and hard, had become a liberal, and then argued loudly from the Left against his betrayed, shocked callers-in the rest of the time that day. Aside from revealing the superficial nature of the loud “barking,” it is simply hilarious.
Also, if you remember the Dem convention in Boston, Jeanine Garafalo got shanghaied onto Hannity’s show for a brief time, and frankly, she fully held her own with Hannity, did a fine job; if anyone else heard this when it happened, you know.
I would say that all of the big media has a conservative bias, but that FOX is the only one that has a Republican bias.
Think about it
Why aren’t there limits on how much space (and air) any one person can take up on a thread?
“FOX is the only one that has a Republican biasz”
Hmmm.
This afternoon, on MSNBC I watched an interview with a man from AEI proclaim that
1) there was no scientiftic consensus about global warming
2) there was consensus, but it was different that Gore’s
3) the global warming message concealed a left-wing agenda for wealth distribution (that old stand-by alarm bell for conservatives)
4) Gore had a Messiah complex
— without rebutttal or challenge or so much as a raised eye-brow about resorting to personal insults.
Switching to CNN each announcement about global warning concerts was followed by two people criticizing the event, with no one in favor consulted.
That was followed by an examination of the Clintons’ hypocrisy’ re Libby, with no reference to the difference in the two instances.The only balance was an admission that people other than Democrats were angry too.
That was only one afternoon on Cable news.
If this is liberal bias, their critics should be begging for more!
OK — time’s up.
I and others supply quality in addition to quantity, and are self-regulating, and tell the truth even if you don’t want to hear it. We aren’t all lock-step liberals here on The Liberal Voice. Is that the (likely) real problem?
You remind me of my radical friend in DC. She likes European media (more liberal than ours). Maybe you might, too. Also FAIR and CounterSpin, and the far left publishing houses. Seems you’ll be that way for quite a while, still.
Probably set up to make the conservative viewpoint look antagonistic, the way Bush is toward Congress, if not simply monotonic or scripted, not interesting.
Did they have the typical young, attractive liberal set up against the stuffy old buzzard conservative? No surprise if they did.
DLS- Yes I believe that some more intelligent listeners can cut through the BS on AM talk radio. But millions more can’t or don’t. How do I know? You hear the same talking points echoed on am radio, then see them on cable (Hannity and OReilly) and then see them in comments on this site and some of the conservative sites. Ever go to Dick Polman’s site ? (I actually like Polman and agree with him a lot, but can’t stand the commenters on his blog) Same with Red State and Blogs for Bush. There was someone on Polman’s blog who taunted Elizabeth Edwards about her cancer- saying that soon only John would have to worry about combing his hair, because she wouldn’t have any in a few months.
There’s nutjobs on both sides—you notice those on the left more because you are a righty- I notice those on the right more because I’m a lefty.
DLS said
At least with the Journal, as opposed to nearly all liberal papers, magazines, and media broadcasts, there’s a distinction that can be made.
Of course there is no proof for this. It has been claimed constantly by conservatives but somehow the only real proof for their claims that everything but Fox is liberally biased always seems to be conservative think tanks.
Jason,
Show me where DLS has ever expressed anything on here that wasn’t reliably far right? If I say that’s what he does and in fact it’s true how is that an attack?
This is fairly typical from DLS
And yet, somehow when he starts it or even carries it much farther than anything anyone else has said as he did in this instance it is never noted by anyone like Jason. I said he was far right and the line about the evil liberal biased media is something Limbaugh would be proud of. Show me where I’m wrong and how it becomes an over the edge attack? Because I repeated the word right several times? Have you read the posts from DLS?
which has been and remains a lie.
The rest of your whining and false statements, here and on other threads, I’ll not bother correcting this time.
Thank you for proving me correct about you once more, DLS.
OK…I’ll knock of 2 or 3 of the fars. Fair enough?
I hate typos… How about “knock off” instead of “knock of”, whatever that would mean?
So now DLS is only far far right? lol
Well if he is, he is.
I get accused of being far, far left on other boards- but my opinions are genuinely what I believe and not lefty talking points. I actually thought I was a centrist, but the conservatives never think so.
Jim S,
Please address substantive issues and do not characterize or label posters or other commenters. There is no reason to paste labels on to individuals, just talk about their arguments. This is not up for debate, so please stop challenging it.
DLS,
Please stop responding in kind to provocations. Let me handle it as moderator. Email me if you think I missed something.
kritter,
Thank you for stepping up with a reasonable response even though I know you don’t agree with DLS on, well, anything. That is the kind of behavior that we need a lot more of around here — people who disagree but are willing to try to make it a respectful and even principled disagreement.
OK, Jason. My apologies and I will try to avoid going there in any way again.