Murdoch To Times: I Will Bury You! Keller Bristles
Rupert Has Seen Future: It’s Insurgent Journal Vs. ‘Monolithic Media’
MORE Off the Record
At 3 p.m. on Oct. 12, three days before the launch this week of the Fox Business Network, Roger Ailes gave a rally-the-troops speech to FBN rank-and-file, according to a staffer present. The Fox News president warned that the upstart network would encounter a doubting mainstream press, just as Fox News had over a decade ago. “Don’t worry about what people may say about us,” Mr. Ailes told his staff. Then he dug into his mid-1990’s newspaper archives, and gleefully quoted from a notably skeptical—and, as it turned out, unprescient—assessment of Fox News’ prospects. The article was from The New York Times.
Even as Rupert Murdoch uses FBN, his latest News Corp. project, to take on the existing business television establishment in the form of CNBC and Bloomberg, he and his top lieutenants appear to have one eye on the coming struggle with a more iconic foe. To Mr. Murdoch, The New York Times represents exhibit A in his case that the mainstream—that is, the non-Murdoch-owned—media ignores a certain viewpoint: namely, that particular blend of conservative populism, tabloid exuberance and capitalist cheerleading with which he has rewritten the rules of the news business. Now Mr. Murdoch, 76, is gearing up to use The Wall Street Journal to further that viewpoint—and in the process, knock The Times off its pedestal.
“My worry about The New York Times is that it’s got the only position as a national elitist general interest paper,” Mr. Murdoch told Time magazine in June. “So the network news picks its cues from The Times. And local papers do, too. It has a huge influence. And we’d love to challenge that.”
It’s becoming clear, then, that Mr. Murdoch plans to give The Times its first taste of real competition since the New York Herald Tribune folded in 1966, by going after The Times’ status as the national paper of record. But what’s not clear is whether The Times accepts that the gantlet has been thrown down.
Since Mr. Murdoch and his band of pirates began rattling their sabers this summer, Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger has maintained a dignified silence—and he declined The Observer’s request to comment on the coming showdown. But Bill Keller, the paper’s executive editor, questioned the viability of Mr. Murdoch’s plan to build an alternative national paper. “Good journalism for an intelligent general audience is hard,” he told The Observer in an e-mail. “And we’re really good at it. Taking on The Times is not as easy as waving a credit card and proclaiming yourself ‘fair and balanced.’”
Ever since his bid to buy Dow Jones was announced on May 1, media hand-wringers have spilled plenty of ink on the subject of what Mr. Murdoch would do with The Journal. And in recent months, a picture—albeit still fuzzy and indistinct—has begun to emerge.
In early August, just days after bickering Bancrofts accepted News Corp.’s $5 billion offer, Marcus Brauchli, The Journal’s managing editor since May, held a conference call with reporters and editors from the newspaper’s various bureaus. Journal staffers from several cities—including Chicago, Boston, Atlanta and San Francisco—were involved, according to a source on the line. On that call, Mr. Brauchli for the first time relayed to the bureau staffers Mr. Murdoch’s intention to chip away at The Times’ newspaper-of-record mantle, by offering more general news. In the long-term, Mr. Brauchli told his team, The Journal hoped to reorganize its resources so that, for instance, when a bridge collapses in Minnesota, it could quickly be on the scene, just as The Times is.
But making that happen will be far from easy. “My feeling always was that the paper is best off defining itself as a business newspaper, albeit with often much broader coverage than strictly business,” said Peter Kann, who spent four decades at Dow Jones, most recently as chairman and CEO. “Where you cross the line to become a more general interest paper, I don’t know.”
In interviews over the summer, Mr. Murdoch also suggested that several other less far-reaching changes could be in the works: He noted, among other things, that more resources might be funneled into covering politics, both in Washington and internationally, and that he’d give serious thought to eliminating the online pay wall and replacing it with a model based on ad revenue.
There’s already evidence that some of these moves could soon become reality. As The Observer reported last month, Mr. Brauchli recently announced that John Bussey, known as an experienced, take-charge editor, would be the new Washington bureau chief. And, sources say, he’ll likely assign the well-regarded Gary Putka, who had been a top candidate for the bureau chief job, to oversee some coverage of homeland security and national affairs from Boston. “There’s an assumption that there will be more resources going into Washington,” Gerald Seib, who was recently named the paper’s executive Washington editor, told The Observer.
Perhaps more portentously, on Oct. 16—four weeks after The Times ended TimesSelect, which had put its columnists off-limits to readers who weren’t paid subscribers—The Journal experimented by taking down its own more comprehensive online pay wall for a day, increasing speculation that it could come down permanently in the not-too-distant future.
Industry analysts say such a move would be one of the most threatening actions The Journal could take with regard to its new rival. “If Murdoch takes down the pay wall, the competition for the business reader will increase,” said Ken Doctor, a media analyst with Outsell Inc. “The Times has a strong franchise in business news, and then The Wall Street Journal can go directly at that and say, ‘We are the No. 1 business source and those of you using The New York Times business can go to us for free now.’” Mr. Doctor continued: “Business customers are among the most lucrative online, and if Murdoch takes them away, it’s the greatest hurt he could inflict.” Next Page >
Is anyone really surpised? When has Murdoch failed to pedal sex, money and drugs (though not in that particular order) to an American public that has become increasingly stupid...
Wonder how long before The Wall Street Journal becomes as unrelable as FOX News!
Good work Ms. Colderone..I stopped my subscription the day Mr. Murdoch bought out the Wall Street Journal...reviewd my stocks and bonds and moved the profits into "safer" investments....
I trust Murdoch with my money (advise) about as fast as I would trust Rush Limbaugh with a bottle of Oxy-Cotin.
typo with gauntlet
See my post, "Wall Street Journal vs. NY Times fight will go 3 rounds and end in a knockout" at www.thefutureofnews.com.
Rupert Murdoch is going to die.. and no one will care... his obituary will probably tell everyone how he wass basically what a robber barron was back in the early 1900's. He's just a pathetic old man, really... I mean, this constant thirst for wealth and to mislead, it can't be much fun being him at night. I'm sure he has a lot of money but look at what he stands for, what a disgrace. I'm sure I'm not alone in anticipating his demise, maybe then we can go back to a time when the news wasn't about skewing information for political gain(fat chance right?).
Mr. Murdock has more credibility than all of the left, for some reason there are people who would leave their rights and have a dictatorship. These people can't think for themselves and would follow the the left into hell.
Lawrence Brown: What does "the left" have to do with a cranky old man buying the Wall Street Journal???
Pecos 45: Lawrence Brown is projecting. A standard right-wing psychological problem.
Right-wingers don't get irony. That's why Murdoch thinks its plausible that his uncredible NewsCorp could ever be viewed as a paper of record.
How can an organization not know for having any relationship with the reality based world become the national paper of "record"? Those guys will still swear that there were WMDs in Iraq when Bush chose to invade.
When did this guy crawl out of the Boon docks and start buying up the poluted airwaves besides the print rags? We Americans were asleep,the repugs had the power with the FCC, dunces like Powell and now this yoyo suck up Kevin? will do the same knuckling under unless somebody starts burning paper, and gets the Congress, to get off their hindends and pass laws to return the media back to the constitution, where it was till the money barons stole it.
Rupert "BABY FOUND IN GARBAGE CAN!" Murdoch, Rupert not of woman born, Rupert Murder the dirtbag - is a threat to the NYT? He's a threat to pornographers maybe - not journalists with his Bare and Phallused news reporting... you conservatives make us sick.
Remember that this is coming from the same "genius" of journalism that employs Bill O'Whinely. Who, by the way, threw a wildly entertaing tantrum and stomped out of NPR when "evil secular humanist high priestess" Terri Gross asked him some real journalistic questions (check NPR.org for a listen on that comedy, even Colbert couldn't get Bills panties so twisted).....real objective journalism is like blinding, burning light when turned on Neo-con-poops such as B.O. or GWB......So, I'm not too worried about the "spirit" of real journalism(what little there is left of it) being threatened by Ebenezzer Scrougedoch, because smart-folk know how to identify and ignore the media sputum that the Faux Empire is known for.
Objective journalism does not call for name calling or likening all individuals who do not subscribe to your particular political bent as rubes.
Murdoch is playing his typical business game & it has been profitable. So why not. The NYT has made some very serious gaffs that they have expertly ignored or covered up with middle of the paper sorta retractions.
Murdoch is NOT a blind right winger. In fact if you check, you will find he is quite the liberal. He just challenges the tone that projects all conservatives as stupid, wrong, & guilty of plotting to overthrow the world, while puffing liberals as though they have the only possible answers to all happenings in the world. The NYT always jumps on any story that attacks anything conservative while excusing or justifying many liberal errors. Both sides have committed wrongs & both are "equally" guilty.
The NYT has decided since there is little or no national competition, they can take on the role of advocate while masking their stories as hard news. That is why many have problems with the NYT.
The NYT is NOT America's national conscience and if it were, we would really be in trouble. Murdoch is also no flower.
I hope to see real journalism re-emerge as a result of active competition. That will benefit all in America.
READING THE COMMENTS REAFFIRMED MY CONSERVATIVE VALUES. ALL THESE ULTRA LEFT LIBERALS CAN DO IS USE NAME CALLING AND LIES TO MAKE THEIR ARGUMENTS. THEY BLINDLY FOLLOW AND AID IN THE DISEMINATION OF THIS ONE WORLD ELITIST GARBAGE. GOD SAVE OUR ONCE GREAT NATION FROM THESE SOCIALISM HORDES.
Rudy makes a good point. How could the NYT ever begin to address an ideological point of view as crazy as his? A paper of record requires readers who can discern fact from fiction.
While the NYT have had gaffes, being right once in a while does make you right all the time, which is how they judge themselves. Feigned outrage and sanctimony over their point of view, is the very reason why an ideological conservative paper could not become the paper of record.
Schultzberger doesn't realize he's in for some hard-nosed bare-knuckle relentless competition. I hope that effete elite has some fight in him, he's gonna need it. That fellow better get his head back into reality, and stop reading his own paper. Murdoch does not have an off switch. I like how the observer pointed out the Murdoch "does have an advantage of 69 billion to 2 billion in size." Ha! That's funny. That's the whole game people. Notice how the WSJ journal people won't jump onto the good, albeit sinking, ship the N.Y. Times? They have bills to pay, and NYT isn't going to be around much longer as a paper, just a paper and a memory...
Never, ever underestimate Rupert Murdoch. He is a brilliantly talented risktaker but as a newspaper publisher he is probably without equal. Some of his newspapers may not be to everyones taste but his ability to spot a gap in the market, and then to fill that gap and more, is the mark of a true pro. The Sun newspaper (the real heart of his empire) was a bankrupt rag when he bought it in the 60's. It is now the best selling english-language daily newspaper in the world. A similar transformation took place with the News of the World, now the best selling english-language Sunday newspaper. I might refuse to have either newspaper in my house on the grounds that they are sleazy and semi-pornographic but for the majority of their purchasers opening them up is the true start of their day.
He is also prepared - and has the resources - to play a very long game: The Times (often mistakenly called the London Times in America) was the 'newspaper of record' in England when he bought it about 20 years ago. It had lost money for generations. It's no longer the newspaper of record but it sells more than 3 times as many copies every day and, within a few years, is likely to overtake The Daily Telegraph as the best selling 'quality' newspaper. When he goes for a market segment he ain't happy until he's number 1.
But, IMHO, it is not financial wealth that ultimately drives him but the desire for political power. Not just being close to the people with power but being able to use his huge wealth of media resources to make sure those in power listen to him and pay attention to his views (or at least give the impression of doing so). He is an expert manipulator of politicians as anyone who has watched his careful construction of an international media behemoth can attest.
Sadly, as his business has prospered his political views have gone further and further to the right: Bush and Cheney can have had no more loyal a supporter. His political judgement has become inept: for any high profile newspaper owner and television broadcaster to support an overseas occupation they have to be fairly sure of their facts and of its success. To baldly support the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that it would bring the price of oil down to $20 a barrel showed a serious lack of judgement. However, what is frightening to those of us who love newspapers is that every single one of his 'independent' editors around the world (was it 92 newspapers at the last count?) happened to agree with him.
We have reached a stage where any single politician in Britain or Australia who is perceived as a threat to Murdoch's interests will have their lives made miserable as a result. No Prime Minister, or wannebe, believes that they can afford to alienate him and they pander to him instead. If it is not already the same in America it will be shortly.
As someone with a great interest in newspapers and the media industry I have enormous admiration for the man coupled with disdain for his political views; I've often been staggered by the gambles that he has taken but less and less surprised at their success; I've been left awe-struck by his ability to manipulate politicians to achieve his aims but have nothing but contempt for those politicians who, for short-term gain, have allowed him to become simply too powerful and a danger, or potential danger, to our already limited democracy. As a result, despite my admiration, I decided to make a very conscious effort a few years ago to terminate my personal relationship with News Corp. by simply refusing to purchase or view or consume anything knowingly owned or controlled by his business group. It is a sign of the man's success that it is quite hard to achieve (particularly if you share my great interest in English football which he has effectively bought up) but I have done so and my life continues to run its course quite happily - I strongly recommend the same course of action to others who share my concerns.
What is this Kangaroo Fucker doing here in the United States anyway? Why don't he go Fuck up Australia?
But what’s not clear is whether The Times accepts that the gantlet has been thrown down.
I strongly recommend the same course of action to others who share my concerns.
In fact if you check, you will find he is quite the liberal. He just challenges the tone that projects all conservatives as stupid, wrong, & guilty of plotting to overthrow the world, while puffing liberals as though they have the only possible answers to all happenings in the world.