Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times writes Saturday about the reasons why News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch should not be allowed to purchase Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal.
“Imagine a man with that sort of predilection controlling this country’s leading purveyor of news and statistics on finance, markets and investing. Then consider that you and your family rely on that information to responsibly invest the money in your 401(k). The first overarching public question is whether we want the nation’s — indeed, the world’s — single most important source of financial news in the hands of an owner, like Murdoch, who has a documented history not simply of meddling with his publications but also of meddling for his own financial gain.
“That brings us to Murdoch’s baleful and equally demonstrable influence on American journalism, since heaving his rapacious carcass onto our shores as a full-time resident. The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to decry the unthinking tolerance of destructive and heretofore aberrant social and moral behavior because he said it produced what he liked to call ‘the mainstreaming of deviance.'” Because of Murdoch’s Fox News and its success in the ratings, we now accept the blending of news and opinion, of name-calling and unapologetic partisanship, as just another cable television ratings ploy.”
Read more here.
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