A Dark Omen

Yesterday’s news about the impending takeover of the Wall Street Journal by Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp. was a dispiriting blow to those who have been following the fortunes of American newspapers.

The Journal is known for two excellences. First is a conservative, but very well-written and influential, editorial page. More important, however, is its reputation for superb and unbiased nationwide and worldwide news coverage. It is one of only three newspapers, heretofore independent, that have the resources, stature, and inclination to make a difference in the discussion of national issues; the other two are the New York Times and the Washington Post.

The Journal is also, as the Associated Press story said yesterday, "a newspaper that is considered required daily reading among the business and power elite." This is the key to Murdoch’s interest in buying the paper for $5 billion. The man isn’t interested in the profits; he’s got plenty of money already. It’s the access to the "business and power elite" that he’s buying.

It is not likely that the new publisher will step in quickly to make major changes at the newspaper. He’s too smart for that and he knows it’s the Journal’s reputation for quality and independence that makes it valuable. Over a period of years, however, it is inevitable that the Journal will begin to change, as the goal of access to power, rather than independent reporting, becomes paramount. This will continue to be true even after Murdoch himself leaves the picture and other, now-faceless, corporate managers of the News Corp. take the levers of influence in the enormous media conglomerate.

The fact is that corporate chain ownership has changed the face of American media, and very much for the worse. Those interested in the topic can find a good summary in the article written by Russell Baker, an influential former New York Times columnist, in the latest New York Review of Books. The article carries the alarming title, "Goodbye to Newspapers?" and may be found online at www.nybooks.com/articles/20471.

Baker writes that the greatest sin of corporate ownership is the constant drive for profits at the expense of quality. The new owners, he says, quoting former Los Angeles Times Editor John Carroll, are "puzzled" when newspaper editors make the argument—which used to be self-evident—that journalism is a kind of public service, in addition to a business.

"What makes these people tick? they wonder," he quotes from Carroll’s recent speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. "The job of any employee, as they see it, is to produce a good financial result, not to indulge in some dreamy form of do-gooding at company expense … Our corporate superiors regard our beliefs as quaint, wasteful and increasingly tiresome."

A great deal of damage has already been done. Some of the best large and mid-sized newspapers in the country have already been "ravaged" by cost cutting, Baker writes: The Baltimore Sun, The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Des Moines Register, The Hartford Courant, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the San Jose Mercury News and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch are examples.

As for the latest developments, Russell Baker is succinct: "Murdoch at the Wall Street Journal is a dark omen for journalists everywhere."