An interesting article from the New York Times this morning. Essentially, a hit piece on Rupert Murdoch.. or rather transparent effort to keep him from picking up the Wall Street Journal from the Bancroft family.
The sale would give Mr. Murdoch control of the pre-eminent journalistic authority on the world in which he is an active, aggressive participant. What worries his critics is that Mr. Murdoch will use The Journal, which has won many Pulitzer Prizes and has a sterling reputation for accuracy and fairness, as yet another tool to further his myriad financial and political agendas.
What they fail to mention is their prime complaint; That the New York Times didn’t get to use The Journal, as yet another tool to further Sulzberger’s myriad financial and political agendas. An example of their using the Times itself for such comes from the article itself, which on his Daily Mail site, Don Suber notes:

What I found most interesting was this passage:

Shortly before Christmas in 1987, Senator Edward M. Kennedy taught Mr. Murdoch a tough lesson in the ways of Washington.

Two years earlier, Mr. Murdoch had paid $2 billion to buy seven television stations in major American markets with the intention of starting a national network. To comply with rules limiting foreign ownership, he became an American citizen. And to comply with rules banning the ownership of television stations and newspapers in the same market, he promised to sell some newspapers eventually. But almost immediately he began looking for ways around that rule.

Then Mr. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, stepped in. Mr. Kennedy’s liberal politics had made him a target of Murdoch-owned news media outlets, particularly The Boston Herald, which often referred to Mr. Kennedy as “Fat Boy.” He engineered a legislative maneuver that forced an infuriated Mr. Murdoch to sell his beloved New York Post.

Not exactly what Madison and the boys had in mind when they passed that First Amendment.

What other arms has Ted Kennedy twisted off in his 4-plus decades in the Senate?

Indeed, and what role did the Times have in all of that?
What this boils down to, is this; Rupert Murdoch is more of a success in the field, than Pinch Sulzberger as a hope of ever being. The New York Times, as evidenced by its dwindling circulation numbers, is failing. It has been for several years. It has become a has been, by virtue of it’s leadership. It is not currently being kept alive by any innovation, or even good reporting. It is being kept alive, simply by momentum. Murdoch, meantime, as been seeing his empire grow by leaps and bounds. Mostly, because people are buying the products he is selling, and not they’re not buying what the Salberger and the Times is selling. I suppose that’s what happens, when you give people freedom of choice.
edit (David L)

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