Bill Carter of The New York Times writes Tuesday that the CNBC ads pulled from the Wall Street Journal and Marketwatch web sites on Monday — the day that Fox Business Network launched — are raising questions again about the independence of Dow Jones & Co. as a Rupert Murdoch property.
Carter wrote, “The decision to oust CNBC in favor of Fox Business brought up an issue that was often discussed during the News Corporation’s negotiations to purchase Dow Jones.
“Tom Rosenstiel, the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said, ‘It does raise anew the question of whether the editorial judgment of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones journalists will remain independent of News Corp. Apparently on the ad side, it will not.’
“The switch in the ads angered many executives at CNBC and NBC Universal, who questioned whether Dow Jones had breached the agreement under orders from executives at the News Corporation, even though it was not under any obligation yet to follow those orders.”
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