Categories: OLD Media Moves

Dumb and dumber

One of my favorite pieces of business journalism each week is TheStreet.com’s Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week.

This week’s editionÂ kicks off withÂ the decision by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch to pick the Bancroft family member for his board with the least amount of business experience and involvement in Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, that he will purchase next month.

Colin Barr writes that when questioned about the decision, Murdoch noted that corporate governance experts have also criticized Google.

Barr wrote, “Way to change the subject. The experts’ complaint wasn’t that Google’s board was packed with 27-year-old opera singers lacking in apparent business experience. To the contrary, Google’s board is chock full of Silicon Valley hard hitters.

“The experts’ complaint about Google — and about Dow Jones and News Corp., for that matter — is that the company has two classes of stock. The arrangement gives insiders control of the company with just a minority economic stake — and insulates the CEO and his pals from shareholder discontent.

“Not that any of this matters much to Murdoch, who after all is due next month to take control of the Journal. His $5 billion bid for Dow Jones was helped immeasurably this past spring by persistent strife within the Bancroft family.”

Read more here. Dumb-o-meter score: 93.

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.