Categories: OLD Media Moves

Media Life readers: Rupert buys WSJ for his biz channel, not his ego

Media Life magazine polled its readers about current issues on the media world, and came back with some interesting opinions.

One opinion that was not surprising was that Business 2.0 is the magazine most often named as being in trouble. More than 11 percent of its readers said the Time Inc. publication was “at risk.” The next closest was Radar at 7 percent.

As for News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch‘s acquisition of Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, most readers thought that he was making the deal simply to bolster his upcoming Fox Business Network.

Forty-six percent said his soon-to-launch cable business news channel was the reason behind the deal, rather than being motivated by ego (26 percent) or an intense desire to challenge The New York Times (28 percent.)

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.

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Tony says:
September 5, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Is that supposed to be Rupert Murdoch or Mr. Burns? ...Anyway, I would say that regardless of his actual reason for taking over WSJ, there's no doubt that the deal definately adds another notch to his belt as far as his corporate connections. NewsVisual has an interesting artical and visual map up right now of his ties that does a good job showing just how powerful he is: http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/09/rupert-murdoch.html