Kudos for The Deal's M&A coverage

Danny Schechter, who is blogger in chief at Mediachannel.Org and author of “The Death of the Media and the Fight to Save Democracy,” has an affinity for the mergers and acquisitions coverage of The Deal, which, he says, covers M&As with more scrutiny than other business publications.

Schechter wrote, “They take a critical look at some high profile deals that initially wowed the business pages and made a few people very rich.

“Take Google’s $1.6 Billion dollar takeover of YouTube. They must know what they are doing, right?

“Wrong, says The DEAL, noting ‘Already the post-deal euphoria is wearing off amid questions about Google’s ability to monetize You Tube which has yet to make a profit….Google’s margin for error, give the attention span of YouTube’s Young Audience is thin.’

“Next, there’s Disney’s purchase of Pixar, the animation studio for $7.4 billion, or ‘more than one billion a feature.’ So far the company is doing better on paper, with stock trades higher, even as ABC News descents into a swamp of John Stossel screeds and undistinguished but glitzy reporting.

“Finally here’s Rupert Murdoch buying DIRECT TV from John Malone’s Liberty media. The Deal was characterized is as an ‘exchange of gifts befitting of moguls’ and ending an ‘often silly saga in mogul one-upmanship.’ In the end, Murdoch generated about $3.5 billion in stock gains for his News Corpse. Who lost?

“We the taxpayers, of course! While we pay ours, they avoid theirs.

“Explains The Deal, ‘And it was all accomplished, of course, in the tax-free manner both moguls prefer.'”

Read more here. Schechter concludes, “Most of our business journalists don’t do enough to scrutinize and expose mafia-like machinations at the top. They tend to beatify the Captains of Capitalism.”