Categories: OLD Media Moves

Dow Jones could do worse than Rupert Murdoch

Variety columnist Brian Lowry writes Tuesday that Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, could do worse than being sold to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, who has offered $5 billion for the company.

Lowry wrote, “Whatever Fox News Channel and the New York Post’s excesses under Murdoch’s stewardship, GE and other conglomerates have hardly distinguished themselves as champions of blue-blooded journalism, while the Journal and indeed the entire newspaper sector must take some responsibility for its economic vulnerability.

GE already controls news network MSNBC, which, through the introduction of its tawdry primetime “doc block,” seems determined to gradually morph into TCPC, or the ‘To Catch a Predator’ Channel.

“A similar mentality informs the latest addition to business-news sibling CNBC, which introduces a series this week titled ‘American Greed: Scams, Scoundrels and Scandals.’ While positioned as a furtive attempt to expand the CNBC ‘brand’ with more compelling reasons to stay tuned than a stock ticker, the program also betrays an abiding faith in true crime as the most reliable (and invariably lowest) of cable common denominators.

“In part, the collective hand-wringing devoted to Murdoch’s overture to absorb Dow Jones reflects a larger sense of uncertainty plaguing the print community, inspiring defenders of the old guard to cling tighter to our most-revered institutions.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

Recent Posts

NextGov, Route Fifty tap Bur as executive editor

Jessie Bur has been named executive editor of Nextgov/FCW and Route Fifty, GovExec’s news organizations…

14 mins ago

Zeballos-Roig departs Semafor after two years

Semafor economic policy reporter Joseph Zeballos-Roig has left the organization after two years. He previously…

18 mins ago

Inc.’s Hofman on focusing on entrepreneurs

Russell Sherman of the "Press Profiles" podcast interviewed Mike Hofman, the editor in chief of…

21 mins ago

Dow Jones names new tech leaders

Dow Jones chief technology officer Artem Fishman sent out the following: Team, As we continue…

1 hour ago

Yahoo Finance seeks an executive producer

Yahoo Finance is the world's most-used business and financial digital platform. It offers millions of…

4 hours ago

Entertainment industry reporter Voytko-Best departs Forbes

Lisette Voytko-Best, who covered the entertainment industry for Forbes, has left the publication. Voytko-Best is…

5 hours ago