On the media beat for two weeks before Murdoch bid for WSJ

Marketwatch media columnist Jon Friedman wrote Friday about New York Times business reporter Richard Perez-Pena, who began covering the media beat two weeks before News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch made his offer to purchase the parent of The Wall Street Journal for $5 billion.

Friedman wrote, “The Journal essentially was covering its future, and emotions were running high. It didn’t take long for Perez-Peña to see what he was up against.

“‘Every Sunday night, I dreaded logging onto WSJ.com to see what they had,’ he told me on Wednesday afternoon when we talked in the Times’ cafeteria. He drank coffee and nibbled on two cookies. (‘My afternoon caffeine and sugar,’ he said.)

“At the Times, Perez-Peña was helped by his editor, Bruce Headlam, and the paper’s mergers and acquisitions maestro, reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin.

“Perez-Peña provided comprehensive coverage and showed grace under pressure in pieces such as ‘I, Rupert, Will Not That Is, Until I Do’ on July 22; ‘At the Gates; Fear, Mixed with Some Loathing’ on July 19; and ‘Workers See Few Options at Dow Jones’ on June 21.

“A low point occurred for Perez-Peña, he pointed out, when ‘we had something flat-out wrong because a well-placed source gave us misinformation.’ The piece dealt with the structure of an editorial agreement between News Corp. and Dow Jones.”

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