Round one goes to New York Times

Douglas Bell of Toronto Life looks at the newspaper war between The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times in the aftermath of News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch‘s purchase of the Journal and gives round one to the Times in a knockout.

Bell wrote, “For the moment, they’re no doubt popping victory champagne corks at the Times as they have more or less owned l’affaire Spitzer. Today, the paper took the rare step of splashing a headline all the way across page one, reinforcing the perception that, having been inside the process (the governor’s office, the federal investigation, Silda’s head, the prostitute’s daybook) from the get-go last Friday, it was ‘their’ story. This must have particularly galled Murdoch, who promised to make the Journal snappier and more populist in its approach while at the same time holding its traditional base on Wall Street.

“So here it is, Wall Street meets Main Street at the corner of sex and corruption. And the Journal is absolutely nowhere. So thoroughly did the Journal get its ass kicked that it ran a sour grapes op-ed by one of its more rabidly right-wing columnists blaming the media for being Spitzer’s ‘enablers.’

“Insane? Sure. But hey, c’est la guerre.”

Read more here.