Categories: OLD Media Moves

Journal reporters livid about deal details

Walter Hamilton of the Los Angeles Times writes Wednesday that a number of Wall Street Journal reporters are upset at what led the paper to be sold to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Hamilton wrote, “The newsroom was particularly incensed by the detail, disclosed on the Journal’s website Tuesday, that Dow Jones had agreed to pay the Bancroft family’s advisory and legal fees related to the merger, which are estimated to be at least $30 million.

“The journalists viewed the payment, which would ultimately be made by Murdoch’s News Corp., as an improper incentive for wavering family members to support the deal.

“‘There’s a real feeling that this place covers the worst in corporate behavior and our executives should have known better,’ one reporter said.

“A Dow Jones spokeswoman refused to comment on the issue.”

Read more here, including one reporter’s criticism of former managing editor Paul Steiger.

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.

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