Categories: OLD Media Moves

Former editor: Murdoch now obsessed with WSJ

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch is bored with Britain and is now interested only in his newly acquired The Wall Street Journal, one of his former editors told a British parliamentary committee, according to an AP story.

The AP story stated, “Andrew Neil, who edited Murdoch’s Sunday Times in Britain for 11 years, said the owner used to offer him advice by faxing clippings of op-ed pieces cut from the noted US newspaper.

“‘He loved The Wall Street Journal, he will love it even more now he owns it,’ Neil told the House of Lords communications committee.

“‘He would fax them (op-eds) over to you … I used to get them on Star Wars, on (former US President Ronald) Reagan, on the Cold War.’

“Peers in the House of Lords are scrutinising the influence of newspaper proprietors on editorial policy in Britain’s newspapers — asking current and former editors to give testimony.”

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.