Jill Goldsmith of Variety writes that Wall Street, which initially liked News Corp.’s acquisition of Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones & Co., has now become negative about the deal.
Goldsmith writes that the fears about News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch meddling in the paper’s content have yet to materialize.
She writes, “In fact, Murdoch has stood out in an economic climate where some 6,000 newspaper jobs have vanished nationwide this year alone, showing faith in a shrinking business. The Journal has yet to see the massive layoffs of other publications, and there are plans to expand coverage in some areas. Bucking the industry trend, subscriptions actually went up for the six months ended in March.
“Since the Dow Jones deal closed last December, Murdoch installed a new CEO, Les Hinton. They’ve been making some small but significant tweaks at the Journal.
“The paper has added pages, including sports, and a feature section called Currents that focuses on religion, education and science. Murdoch’s stated goal is to expand general news coverage, especially in politics, to compete with other papers (in particular the New York Times) while keeping its lock on the business reporting that has been the paper’s pride.”
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