Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

...The Wall Street Journal... so much for the journalistic integrity of that paper. It will all be like the editorial page, now. Telling bite from the NYT article on Murdoch's bodysnatching of Dow Jones:

At its most ambitious, Mr. Murdoch’s vision for Dow Jones would establish The Journal as the rival to The Times in setting the daily news agenda of the country.

The vision has a business corollary: by broadening The Journal’s influence beyond pure business readers, Mr. Murdoch wants to reposition it as not just the world’s leading financial newspaper, but the world’s leading business journalism source for consumers.

The paper has already tried this with softer service features and its Saturday edition. Reorienting the newspaper further for consumers would fit with two other aspirations Mr. Murdoch has. One is to build his nascent Fox Business Network, which begins in 30 million United States homes this October, into a viable contender with Bloomberg Television and CNBC, which have much larger subscriber bases both at home and abroad.

And this:

Mr. Murdoch has shown in the past that he is willing to experiment, even knock over some sacred cows. In an interview with The Times earlier this year, Mr. Murdoch mused aloud about The Journal, saying, for instance, that he did not have time to read longer articles during the week and might like to swap out the paper’s Pursuits section on Saturdays with a glossy magazine. More recently, he told Time magazine that he was not sure about the offbeat front-page stories known internally as “A-Heds” that are a plum for reporters to write.

Ah, the softer side of news. Just what the business minded WSJ reader was looking for. Ahem. ...

And one wonders how long it will take before the Journal is wallowing in the same tabloid propaganda that guides Murdoch's other ventures, including the Times of London, the New York Post and of course, his GOP baby, Fox "News" Channel.

What a shame. Greed obviously got the better of the Bancrofts, the family that controlled Dow Jones. The prospect of making a killing on their shares of a company headlined by a business -- newspapers -- that is now officially a dinosaur, must have been hellified tempting. Still, one would have wished that the family cared more about the integrity of the brands they helped to build. Apparently not. As David Carr of the Times writes:

The reputation of The Journal is now in the hands of Mr. Murdoch, who did not end up as the owner of one of the world’s best newspapers because he is a paragon of journalistic principle. In the end, the News Corporation’s capture of Dow Jones can be boiled down to one simple fact: Mr. Murdoch wanted it more.

He wanted it more than other potential bidders, like General Electric, Pearson and Ronald W. Burkle, who never came close to challenging his audacious bid. He wanted it more in the end than many of the Bancrofts did — or at least he offered more than they were able to pass up. He wanted it enough to make a deal for editorial independence that seems to run against his entire history as a owner.

We tend to overanalyze media moguls, in part because of their primacy in the current age. Yes, owning a pivot point in financial news will create some tidy synergies — content for a new Fox business channel to compete with CNBC on cable television, a global foothold for financial data, coverage of all of his competitors in The Journal.

(Note to other media moguls keeping track at home: Mr. Murdoch just bought the scorecard.)

But his purchase is a reminder that the unthinkable is often doable, given the loot and the will. Mr. Murdoch is buying an American newspaper because he’s a sentimentalist, not because he has shown any particular skill at making money with them. His Midas touch in foreign tabloids, television, movies, and more recently, digital properties, turns a little rusty when American publications are involved.

His ownership of The New York Post (twice) is an artistic success, but suggests that his love of American print is just that — irrational, driven by an attraction for the kind of power print conveys, and only made possible through his success on other platforms.

The Bancrofts have a sentimental side as well, but the resolution should not have surprised anyone. If the family members did not want to sell, they would have had to slam the door and get the nail gun out on May 2, the day the offer was made public.

The Bancrofts’ wan demurral set in motion market dynamics that blew the door open. Once a stock that had been mired at $36 goes to $60, a huge new constituency for change buys into the stock, one that will sue like crazy if change is not forthcoming.

Greed is not always good. Not for journalism, anyway.