Shafer: Murdoch will trash WSJ, then sell it

Slate.com media critic Jack Shafer writes that News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch will quickly destroy his new acquisition, The Wall Street Journal, and then sell it to someone else when it doesn’t fit his strategy.

Shafer wrote, “Today’s Wall Street Journal moves financial markets with its news accounts because readers believe—rightly—that the paper serves no master but the reader. Even the slightest tinkering by Murdoch will shatter the trust relationship the paper has with its readers, who are a thousand times more discerning and a thousand times less forgiving than the tabloid readers and viewers Murdoch has made his money on. Will readers be able to trust the Murdoch Journal‘s coverage of television? Of cable? Of publishing? Of China? Of the Internet? Of any place Murdoch holds a business interest?

“What of his promises of ‘editorial independence’ for the paper? I’m glad you asked. Murdoch loves to make promises but loves even more to break them. The day will come that Murdoch decides that the newspaper and its parent company no longer fit in the colossus’ ever-shifting plan to straddle all the world’s media. After extracting a bit of the Journal‘s prestige value for his forthcoming cable business news channel, I predict he’ll grow tired of the criticisms and sell it off.

“Will he have permanently crippled it? I suspect so. It takes decades for a newspaper to establish its good reputation. Murdoch will show the world how little time it takes to trash it.”

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