Murdoch will bamboozle even WSJ's editorial page

Former Federal Communications Commission chairman Reed Hundt wrote on the TPM Cafe web site that News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch will affect even the Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial page if he is successful in buying parent company Dow Jones & Co.

Hundt wrote, “As far as the Wall Street Journal editorial board is concerned, they probably think R’s ownership of the paper cannot matter too much. How could he take their views farther to the right, or more distant from reality? The opinion writers are dubious about Darwin, but not about Social Darwinism; doubtful about competition, but in love with monopoly; disdainful of poverty but enamored of wealth; indifferent to science (especially the science of climate change) but worshipful of capitalism; marvelously ignorant of economics, but crazy for money even when articulated in the abstract form of monetarism.

“But even the editorial page writers should be wary of Mr. Murdoch. Their notoriously right-wing views have, to give the devil his due, the mark of independence and ideological fervor. That would be gone. When they might want to assail China for being, ahem, communist or corrupt or closed, if Mr. Murdoch found that he needed landing rights for a satellite business on the mainland or hoped for Beijing’s approval to broadcast the 08 Olympics on Fox, the brave Wall St. Journal editorialists would suddenly discover that the ink they intended to use to express their anti-communist views had suddenly dried up — or they would be looking for new jobs in the free labor market they have long praised.

“The news writers of course already know what will happen to them. It happened to the Times of London before them, and at numerous other papers around the world. The WSJ newsmen and newswomen oday are the best in the world at digging into corporations to discover what is really going on — with Mr.Murdoch as their boss, they would be told to write shorter, which means less thoughtfully and deeply, and to take it easy on his friends. Now, those who are friends cannot count on staying that way; moguls are fickle and, like Britain as to the continent, they have permanent interests rather than permanent allies. So from time to time the new journalism of R’s WSJ might be directed at anyone. However, on a quotidian basis a Murdochian Wall St. Journal would be a mirror of his preferences, not an honest report card on business.”

Read more here.