America's fascination with Murdoch and the Journal

The Economist has a nice analysis of why people in the United States have been so fascinated with New Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch‘s purchase of The Wall Street Journal.

The magazine wrote, “The reason for all this fuss lies in the nature of the two beasts involved—the Journal and the mogul. The Journal is as good as it gets in terms of high-quality journalism. It is also one of only three national newspapers. Mr Murdoch is a tabloid king who has a reputation for taking everything he buys downmarket. The Journal is the gold standard of business reporting. Mr Murdoch is one of the biggest beasts in the business jungle, constantly on the prowl for synergies and acquisitions. Isn’t there a problem in one of the players owning the scorecard that everybody uses? The Journal is not really one newspaper but two—a newspaper and a highly opinionated conservative magazine. Hitherto it has succeeded in drawing a line between them. Will Mr Murdoch resist allowing his own conservative opinions to blur that line?

“For many, Mr Murdoch is a threat to the whole American journalistic tradition. Jim Ottaway, a former vice-president of Dow Jones, argues that there is a sharp difference between the Anglo-Australian model of media ownership and the American one. Anglo-Australian bosses are in the habit of expressing their various biases through their newspapers and TV channels. The American journalistic tradition depends on a ‘strict separation between political opinions expressed vigorously on editorial pages and news reported with as much factual objectivity as possible.’ Mr Murdoch is a barbarian at the gates indeed.

“How much truth is there in all this? The best American newspapers are certainly superior to their Anglo-Australian counterparts in terms of depth and seriousness. But this may have more to do with the size and structure of the market and the American penchant for professionalism than with ownership. If Mr Murdoch degrades the Journal, he will be destroying the very thing for which he is paying such a premium—the paper’s reputation.”

Read more here.