Categories: OLD Media Moves

Murdoch vs. Dow Jones code of ethics

Slate media columnist Jack Shafer examines News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch‘s record in comparison to the Dow Jones & Co. code of ethics to see where he would stack up if the Bancroft family capitulated and allowed him to purchase the owner of The Wall Street Journal for $5 billion.

Shafer wrote, “Murdoch attempts to assuage Brancroft family worries that he’ll run roughshod over the Wall Street Journal by promising in his May 11 letter to buffer his influence over the paper by creating an ‘autonomous editorial board’ akin to the one that presides over his Times of London. The board would approve the sacking or hiring of either the editor or managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and would arbitrate disputes ‘between management and editors.’

“If insulating Murdoch from the Wall Street Journal is such a great idea, why hasn’t he instituted similarly autonomous editorial boards to shield the operations of the New York Post and Fox News Channel from his whims? But that’s not the Murdoch way. A Page One story in the Feb. 14, 1994, Wall Street Journal portrays Murdoch as a details-crazed micromanager, reviewing before publication the next day’s editorial in his New York Post.

“A wordy section of the Dow Jones code of conduct prohibits company employees from accepting money or gifts, either directly or indirectly, from anybody seeking a mention in the pages of a Dow Jones publication. A different code operated at Murdoch’s Post until earlier this month when the paper acknowledged that its ‘Page Six’ editor, Richard Johnson, had accepted a $1,000 gift from a restaurateur. Presumably the money was for ‘play’ in the pages of Murdoch’s newspaper. The New York Times counts 15 favorable ‘Page Six’ mentions of the restaurateur or his establishment in the two years since the gift-giving.

“Once confronted, how did Murdoch’s Post clear the ethical air? Don’t be dense. Its editor, Col Allen, called the receipt of the gift a ‘grave mistake,’ meted out an unspecified reprimand to Johnson, and explicitly banned such future windfalls for employees.”

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.