The Weekly Standard's War: Murdoch sells the paper that helped sell the Iraq War.

Originally published in Extra!, (Sept. 09) the magazine for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

The Weekly Standard, the country's preeminent neoconservative magazine, was sold to Clarity Media Group, a Denver-based publishing group, for an undisclosed sum in June (Washington Examiner, 6/17/09). Murdoch's unloading of the country's most vigorously pro-war journal marks the end of a particularly sinister and regrettable era in the history of U.S. media.

At a glance, the move may seem unremarkable, given the Standard's relative size. With a circulation of about 65,000 and annual losses estimated from $1 million (New Yorker, 10/16/06) to $5 million (Forbes, 6/29/09), the Standard represented only a tiny fraction of Murdoch's vast media empire. Murdoch's News Corporation, one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, took in nearly $33 billion in revenue in 2008 from properties in virtually every sector of the media, including such giants as Fox News Channel, Dow Jones, HarperCollins and MySpace, as well as hundreds of newspapers and television stations across the world.

While it yielded no financial gain for Murdoch and News Corp shareholders, for a time the Standard was arguably the most effective magazine in the nation in terms of its influence on policy. Edited by GOP political operative and neoconservative extraordinaire William Kristol, it had the eyes and ears of prominent members of the new Bush administration, Department of Defense and Congress who drastically escalated the United States' imperial ambitions. Perhaps no publication was as active or as successful in shaping the propaganda campaign that would enable this remarkable foreign policy transformation to take place.

Read the rest here.

Murdoch Video

I have been too depressed to really write about this Murdoch sale -- which I had already come to see as inevitable. But this video from the good people at Free Press is worth watching.

Murdoch & The WSJ Editorial Page

The Murdoch Sale

So the nightmare is becoming a reality, and within a week -- barring some late and unlikely development -- Rupert Murdoch will own the Wall Street Journal. Here is hoping a good portion of Journal's more than 2 million subscribers start reading the Financial Times instead (which, I would argue, is the better of two good newspapers without even considering the Murdoch Factor).

Some thoughts from media critics around the web:

"So Murdoch is on the threshold of getting the Journal, here. This is bad news for everyone in the world who is not related to, or a well-paid employee of, Rupert Murdoch."
---Eric Alterman -- Media Matters

"I don't mean to be too nostalgic. Obviously the news business is falling apart, and we're going to witness all kinds of unimaginable events before someone figures out how to put together a new, very different model ... this is a sad day for journalism. At the very least, if managing editor Marcus Brauchli has any tough stories on China in the can, he'd better run them in the next day or two."
---Dan Kennedy -- Media Nation


“Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of the Wall Street Journal may not be illegal, but it’s certainly wrong. The cost of giving one company — and one man — this much media power is simply too high.”
-- Robert McChesney -- Free Press

"Well, it appears almost wrapped up. Rupert took his position, offered his price, and alternated between petulance and bonhomie in playing the DJ board and Bancrofts like the fine fiddler he is."
--- Ken Doctor -- Content Bridges

Bailey on the WSJ & Murdoch

Today's column by Steve Bailey, Just say no to Rupert Murdoch , is a reminder how fortunate Boston is to have him on the the business section front twice a week. As some may recall, there were rumors that he would leave in the latest round of buyouts. Thankfully, they turned out to be false.

Today, Bailey does not go after Murdoch so much, as he does the Bancroft family (which has New England ties, by the way) for even considering selling the WSJ to Murdoch.

"Now Murdoch, at 76, wants to buy what he has not been able to build in a lifetime. His $5 billion bid is a rich premium for Dow Jones & Co., owner of the Journal, which has made more than its share of management missteps over the years. But the Bancrofts need to ask themselves: Do they really want to be the generation that sells the Journal to a man whose contribution to American journalism is the New York Post and Fox News? Because that is who they will forever be. And they will be poorer, not richer, for it.

[...]

The Bancrofts are about to make a pact with the devil. Over the past couple of days The New York Times has spelled out in detail how Murdoch uses his media reach to promote his vast business interests, whether in Washington or in China. Fat book contracts for congressmen. Another one for Deng Xiaoping's daughter, and a sensitivity to the Beijing government that has made him "the Chinese leadership's favorite media baron," as the Times put it.

[...]


The Bancrofts of Boston still have time to do something really unusual, even heroic, by just telling Rupert no.

Indeed, the Bancrofts could do the world of journalism of big favor -- or at least spare it a huge indignity -- by simply hanging on to their newspaper and their legacy. But I am not optimistic.

Murdoch and Media Ownership

I have long argued that media reform should be at the top priority of those who want wish to have a just society in a vibrant democracy.

I that spirit I recommend this excellent article in today's Times which profiles Murdoch and his shady business dealings with our elected officials (including Hillary Clinton) in exhaustingly detailed fashion. It not only illustrates how dangerous Murdoch is, and how terrible it would be if he were to own Dow Jones and the Wall St. Journal (or as the Times article says "the pre-eminent journalistic authority on the world in which he is an active, aggressive participant."); it also paints a clear picture of how big media buys off politicians, in order keep lax regulations, and enable owners to gain an increasingly huge piece of the media pie.

The article is long, and gives many examples of how this can be done, so it's virtually impossible to choose one, but for starters, lets look at the paragraph way down near the bottom of the story.

HarperCollins [owned by Murdoch's News Corp.] also provoked a firestorm when it gave Mr. Gingrich a $4.5 million book contract as Congress was preparing to redraw the media ownership rules.

Mr. Ginsberg pointed out that Mr. Murdoch later fired the Gingrich book’s editor for making what he regarded as an “uneconomical and unseemly” deal. He said that in general Mr. Murdoch did not involve himself in decisions about book contracts, and added, “If these books aren’t viable, they aren’t published.”

Mr. Lott’s book sold 12,000 copies, according to Nielsen Bookscan, which tracks about 70 percent of all domestic retail and Internet sales. Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, received $24,506 from HarperCollins for his modest-selling book “Passion for Truth,” according to financial disclosure forms. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, got $141,666 for her book “American Heroines,” which has sold better. All sit on either the Commerce or Judiciary Committees that most closely oversee the media business.

HarperCollins has also given book deals to Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, and a $1 million advance to Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court, both of whose books are due out next year.

A former HarperCollins executive, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the company, said Mr. Murdoch was less hands-on than people assumed. “It’s not done in a direct way where he issues instructions,” the executive said. “It’s a bunch of people running around trying to please him.”

Please, if you can, read this in full. I hope this article sparks further inquiry and attention to this dance between big media and politicians. Moreover, for those Democrats out there who insist Hillary Clinton can't be that bad -- remember that she owes Murdoch some favors.