Categories: OLD Media Moves

Questions raised about pulled CNBC ads

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 Corporationâ€™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.”

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.