The sad thing is that this might even make the editorial page BETTER. The WSJ ed page has always been a den of loons, but at least Murdoch prefers more mainstream conservatives instead of just crazy-ass gold bugs and people who can't even read a graph.

Haha, like that will change anything about that fascist rag.

Plunge:

Well that or, as has been speculated about elsewhere, the sale will serve to undermine the reputation of the news division, thus robbing the ed board of it's prestige and some of it's audience.

Either way, the op-ed page can't get any worse.

Ah, Kevin.

I'm doing a happy dance over here.

Just one more outlet of the liberal media bits the duts.

Its not much, but every little bit helps.

"bits the duts"?

I think we're in a crucial in-between phase in media ownership right now. It's too consolidated for independent voices, yet just consolidated enough for the claim "oh there's no monopoly" to be credible to people who are satisfied with having a choice between Pepsi and Coke.

I say let Murdoch buy them all. So we can dispense with the pretense that there's any independent mass media left.

Since the WSJ has been the mouthpiece of extreme radical conservatism and warmongering for decades, it does not matter one bit that it has been purchased by an extreme radical conservative yellow journalist. Nothing has changed. The WSJ will still lie and agitate for the wealthiest and most privileged in our society.

Oh, spare the tears. The WSJ has always celebrated capitalism, red in tooth and claw. Well, they are about ready to have themselves served to the god they worship, and it will be a TERRIBLE SLAUGHTER. I expect that 20 % of the staff will be fired. Too bad. When the automobile came along, the buggy whip manufacturers cried for mercy. Here we have the WSJ in the position of buggy whip manufacturer.

"Some people, like Dow Jones CEO Richard Zannino, enjoy stock holdings that offer roughly 20 million good reasons to believe that such journalism can continue unimpeded within the Murdoch empire. But the rest of us might as well believe in Peter Pan."

Why? Which reporters who have worked at one of his outlets have said that they felt the push of editorial control more under him than under any other major outlet? I many of you hate Andrew Sullivan, but however you classify him, he isn't mainstream conservative. Andrew says he never felt hampered at a Murdoch outlet.

At 76, Murdoch has entered the terminal stage of Vain Old Man Disease. What matters to him now is the size of his pyramid. Whether it begins to collapse within a couple of years of his interment is a matter of no concern.

It's true - it doesn't matter to anyone except those who work there.

Everybody knows who Murdoch is, what he is, and what he stands for.

Anybody with a subscription to the WSJ is already of his mindset.

Nothing has changed. The WSJ will still lie and agitate for the wealthiest and most privileged in our society.

A great deal will change. Currently there is a strong firewall between the news division and the editorial board. The excellent reporting from the news division regularly contradicts the insane ravings from the op-ed pages. With Rupert in control, expect the firewall to disappear and the news division to become the handmaiden of the editorial board.

Noam Sane: "Anybody with a subscription to the WSJ is already of his mindset."

Well. I'm a liberal in California, and we subscribe. I don't read the editorial page, but the journalism is very good. Not everything is warped by the rightwing lens.

Sebastian Holsclaw:
Did Andrew Sullivan head the editorial board ever? Or is he just an op-ed piece writer? Heck, even the WSJ has occasional op-ed pieces by people like nominal Dem Bob Kerrey. Hell, even Mia Farrow had a guest op-ed piece in the WSJ last week. It's the fire breathers that control the left side of the 2 page op-ed spread. Not necessarily the ones who are granted space on the right side. I am talking about the dead tree edition, just to be clear.

Which reporters who have worked at one of his outlets have said that they felt the push of editorial control more under him than under any other major outlet?

Apparently you are unaware of how Faux News is run.

I'm sorry, but their oped page is pure evil, and I've never been able to look at the paper without feeling sick. I hope Murdoch kills it.

Maybe this will improve the WSJ:

Murdoch may cause its pay-for-access walls to come down, in an effort to reach more conservatives.

This may have the side-effect of opening the WSJ to sunshine from the Left.

I'm afraid Murdoch may move the WSJ to the left. People think he's conservative because he owns Fox News. However, according to CBS News, he loves Hillary Clinton. He hosted a fund-raiser for her last year. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/09/politics/main1600694.shtml

Two words: The Dodgers.

per usual, faux-lib is drawing the wrong conclusion from Rupert's support of HRC.

Disputo: And the right conclusion from Rupert's support of HRC is...?

The silver lining of this takeover is that when Murdoch destroys the credibility of the Journal...he will be removing the primary pillar of the editorial page's influence as well.

Wait, is he saying WSJ's editorial page is credible?

Egbert, please give one example from the WSJ that would qualify it as an outlet of the Liberal Media.

Speaking of "barking mad," how on earth does Alterman think that destroying the WSJ's credibility is going to enhance its value as a business to Murdoch?

How many of you would give Alterman any of your money to manage based on this evidence of his business acumen?

Rupert's support of HRC is...?

Ass covering. Ruppert may be a ..., but he understands polls.

I'm afraid Murdoch may move the WSJ to the left...ex-lax at 1:11 PM

...the most serious allegation against the Post is that it is willing to contort its news coverage to suit the business needs of Murdoch, in particular that the paper has avoided reporting anything unflattering to the government of China. Murdoch has invested heavily in satellite television there and wants to maintain the favor of Chinese media regulators.[34]....According to a survey conducted by Pace University in 2004, the New York Post was rated the least credible major news outlet in New York, and the only news outlet to receive more responses calling it "not credible" than credible (44% not credible to 39% credible).[36]...

People think he's a right wing opportunist because he is a right-wing opportunist and his media empire supports a right wing agenda.
As for his opportunism, his London Times supported Blair and received political favors in exchange. His occasional support for HRC is doubtless based on the same calculation.

anyone who lumps the news coverage of the wsj together with the garbage coming from the editorial board either hasn't read the paper or is an idiot. the front page of the wsj is journalism at its best, informative, fun, challenging. unlike the editorial page, where intellectual dishonesty is a virtue, the stuff that runs is vetted and vetted, worked and reworked by editors before it gets published. it's not a place for writers to ignore the facts or celebrate preconceived notions of the left or of the right.

i hate the deal, but what murdoch will do with the paper is anybody's guess. his primary ideology is pure and simple: make money whatever it takes. if that means remaking the paper, that's what he'll do. if it means leaving it alone, he'll do that. if i remember correctly, there were similar predictions of doom years ago when he bought the times of london. my memory might be faulty but i don't there was the kind of dramatic change in the paper that originally was feared. he's also shown a willingness to embrace liberal politicians (tony blair in the early 1990s, for example) when they suit his purpose.

i mourn the deal for one reason not mentioned: the continued consolidation of media ownership. Rupert already has his hands on too much, and that's not good in a democratic society.

I am looking at this through the eyes of a potential businessman, and I don't feel good about it. For simple minds like egbert, who are cheering the demise of The Wall Street Journal as the downfall of a "liberal" newspaper, I am thinking of the potential loss of a valuable source of information. I don't care about the ideology, I care about the facts in terms of future business decisions. By analogy, if you were investing based on the news coverage of the media outlets on the current events: you would have been wiped out with your investing in an Iraq war based on Fox coverage, while incurring less losses based on the coverage of others.

Cheer that, if you want. And do your money a favor and send it to me.

I was a loyal Wall Street Journal reader from the early seventies until a few years ago, when I started getting all my news online. It would be a shame to see Murdoch turn the WSJ into a dumbed-down neocon rag, if only the current editors hadn't done so already.

Really, all these tears because Mr. Murdoch buys a paper. A paper that was no friend to liberals mind you. The WSJ editorial page has been ultra rightwing for years. If you don't like Rupert Murdoch's product don't read it. Daily Kos and the other liberal blogs wouldn't be here if it weren't for media consolidation. A liberal WSJ is simply a visionary and a couple of reporters away.

Prediction: first headlines after Murdoch takes over

"Reports of unsafe Chinese goods proven false"
"Chinese food products perfectly healthy"
"No unrest among workers, peasants: everybody very happy"

What about changing the law so that *all* American Newspapers have to be owned 100% by American citizens? 100% content legislation. IF campaign money is considered free speech (and foreign contributors are frowned upon), then journalism's business should only be owned by American citizens.

The whole thing came about because the Bancrofts were so horrible at managing Dow Jones. The company is a business enterprise, not a plaything for rich twits. If DJ had not managed to squander one of the most respected names in journalism, Rupert would have never made a play. (Written by a frustrated former shareholder of DJ -- former because of the runup in share price induced by the initial Murcoch bid.)

I'm afraid Murdoch may move the WSJ to the left. People think he's conservative because he owns Fox News. However, according to CBS News, he loves Hillary Clinton. He hosted a fund-raiser for her last year.

Posted by: ex-liberal on July 31, 2007 at 1:11 PM

That says more about Hillary's (political) whoredom than Murdoch going to the left. For Rupert, it's "whose bread I eat, their song I sing."

For those, like Mr. Drum, who think the journalism is so great at the WSJ, I think it should be said the WSJ's journalists did not find any problems with Enron, Global Crosssing, the brokerage houses that were selling up the dot bombs, etc, until after it was apparent to everyone else these companies were either fraudulent or selling smoke. The WSJ journalists drank Kenneth Lay's kool aide just like its editorial board did. There were no exposes of GE and Jack Welch's market manipulations, just as there were no exposes of Sandy Weil either, until after the fall. The journalism at the WSJ was just as compromised as the editorials.