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Ear to the Ground

Dow Jones Agrees to Sell to Murdoch

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Posted on Aug 1, 2007

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has long coveted The Wall Street Journal and has now reached a deal to buy parent company Dow Jones & Co. Many employees of the iconic paper and two board members who resigned expressed fears that the conservative Murdoch would damage the Journal’s objectivity and journalistic integrity, as with previous conquests.


AP:

NEW YORK—Rupert Murdoch has sealed a deal to buy Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co. for $5 billion, ending a century of family ownership and adding a crown jewel to his global media empire, News Corp.

The companies said in the wee hours of Wednesday morning that they signed a definitive merger agreement after the deal won sufficient support to pass from a deeply divided Bancroft family, which has controlled the storied newspaper publisher for generations.

Murdoch is getting one of the great trophies of U.S. journalism and a newspaper that is considered required reading among the business and power elite.

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By Verla Mae, August 2, 2007 at 8:28 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I had already switched to reading the Financial Times at the public library anyway.

They’re Pearson owned, and a little more reliable than the WSJ even when the Bancrofts owned it.

That, and it’s pink.

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By yours truly, August 1, 2007 at 3:14 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

It’s nice to see that fascist wasting his loot on a dying industry.  The only thing that’s keeping newspapers afloat is the fact that, right now, it’s very cumbersome to sit at the breakfast table, drinking coffee and, at the same time, trying for an online equivalent of switching from, say, page Al to page Al1. That, plus a paucity of local news.  Once these deficiencies are resolved, though, goodby MSM & good riddence!

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By farmertx, August 1, 2007 at 2:01 pm Link to this comment

My investment portfolio usually runs to $1000 for fertilizer and seed, so I ain’t an avid or causual reader of the WSJ.
But it would seem that the folks who are avid reader’s would notice when Murdoch starts slanting the news, as he always does, and would find another source of info.
As to female stock trader’s with their skirt’s up; hell, I’d chip in 50 cents to see that.
And Viagra ain’t totally bad, Chaseme. But methinks that Murdoch has a few other pills/powders that help him along, as well.

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By THOMAS BILLIS, August 1, 2007 at 1:22 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Hey come on the only reason Murdoch is successful is because we consume his crap.He is only capitalizing on our stupidity.I suggest that if everybody who claims to be so outraged at Murdoch getting the Wall Street Journal stops buying it and hangs it around Murdoch’s neck like an albatross it would signal that the public is ready for journalistic integrity.But alas he will put a female stock trader on page six with her skirt over her head and you will all keep buying.

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By rage, August 1, 2007 at 10:45 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

The Bancrofts disappoint me. They should have held out for $20 Billion. They should have broken that rascal’s financial back just before announcing they were launching a fresh competitor financial news organ to compete with both the owned Journal and the proposed Fox Money Network.

Murdock had the money. And, if he really wanted WSJ that badly, that old reprobate should have had to leverage his massive info-tainment empire to own it. Instead, the Bancrofts pitifully sold out short. $5 Billion? That was an insult, given the stature of the DOW and the WSJ combined in the finance world. The Wall Street Journal has an aged reputation for sound financial reporting, despite their conservative commentary. The Bancrofts squandered an opportunity to rape Murdock. The Bancrofts could have easily commanded and received three times that $5 Billion asking price.

Now, I’ll have to rely on Forbes for sure. Murdock’s history of hiring minions gifted at making up stupid crap as they go along will keep me far away from the WSJ forever and a week.

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By Outraged, August 1, 2007 at 10:10 am Link to this comment

” Brauchli wrote in an e-mail sent to Journal staffers early Wednesday. “Our current and likely future owners have given formal assurances, however, that the newsroom will retain its independence.”

“Formal assurances”...?...  Already the bullshit starts, and unless Murdoch bought drinks last night he hasn’t even put his nickel in the pot yet.

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By Sophi, August 1, 2007 at 10:09 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

“When you’re smiling you’re smiling and the whole Jewish world’s smiling with you….”
Isn’t it amazing how Jewish Murdoch looks.  I wonder what a DNA analysis would disclose…
“I have been accused of being too pro-Israel and too pro-Jewish, to which I plead guilty as charged,” media baron Rupert Murdoch, who is not (actually) Jewish (but surely acts Jewish), told 400 supporters of the Jerusalem College of Technology (March 5, 1999). Driving home his point, the chairman of The News Corp., which controls vast international media and ommunications empire, added: ‘For 50 years, my companies have taken a strong, even strident, position in support of Israel. Our commitment to Israel and its people is unyielding and I believe in Israel‘s future.” The love affair is reciprocal. Murdoch was honored by the Jewish college (which combines religious and engineering studies) with its Wilstein Award in recognition of what it called Murdoch’s role as a global leader in the world of high technology.
God Bless him and the Jews. More power to them both. (Not that either really need any more power of course.)

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By Skruff, August 1, 2007 at 9:57 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Oh Gee, what am I ever going to do?  The VERY VERY wealthy Bancrofts are selling the capitalist review OOPs, I mean the WSJ to the VERY VERY wealthy Murdoch’s Now all the news about rich guys is in the hands of the same gent who covers all the news about poor guys, (as in the NYP) how egalitarian.

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By GW=MCHammered, August 1, 2007 at 9:09 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Just one more reason (Bu$hCo and K-$treet were the originals) to divest in the US stock market. Where have all the filthy-rich American patriots gone? C’mon Billy Logic-Gates, you can out-bid this crazy-like-a-fox Aussie.

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By David, August 1, 2007 at 7:50 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Why does the New World Order have to be bad?

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By Chaseme, August 1, 2007 at 5:53 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

If it wasn’t for Viagra, Murdoch would be curled up in front of a television watching the News; the real News.

Now that he feels he’s UP for spreading his trashy ideas throughout America, he buys every media source available.

DAMN YOU VIAGRA!

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By Marjorie L. Swanson, August 1, 2007 at 5:12 am Link to this comment

Another little bit of America sold to the highest bidder. Bancroft family prostitutes just had to negotiate their price. Rupert pimps America.

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By Greg Bacon, August 1, 2007 at 4:43 am Link to this comment

How long before the front page of the WSJ has a story—with color pics!!—titled:

“Stock Traders Gone Wild”

Murdoch knows that sex sells.

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