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Rupert Murdoch's hand on the tiller.....

The Wall Street Journal is under threat of a Rupert Murdoch take-over. It is said to be resisting. Many fear what the Sun King would "do" to his prize if he were to succeed in acquiring the newspaper.

The WSJ has done an in depth piece on Rupert Murdoch - obviously with an agenda! That aside, The Salt Lake Tribune has re-published the interesting article. A vew vignettes [the full piece here]:

"Murdoch's focus on News Corp.'s bottom line has often allowed market considerations to influence editorial moves, and different markets have led to starkly different approaches. In the U.S., Fox News has thrived by tilting to the right, filling a niche left open by its network and cable rivals. In Italy, a 24-hour television news channel launched by Murdoch in 2003 has positioned itself as a relatively reliable and objective source of news - in contrast to the political bias of Italy's more-established channels.

At all newspapers, owners have a say in broad editorial direction. Murdoch has a long history of being unusually aggressive, reflecting his roots as an old-fashioned press baron. From his earliest days, like some other newspaper proprietors of the last century, he ran his companies with his hands directly on the daily product, peppering reporters and editors with suggestions and criticisms."


And:

"Murdoch's vision and appetite for risk have created a global media empire unlike any other, starting with a single Australian newspaper he inherited from his father in 1952. Today, it includes more than 100 papers in Australia, Britain, the U.S., Fiji and Papua New Guinea; Twentieth Century Fox Film; the Fox TV network; HarperCollins Publishers and the popular MySpace Internet site. In the four quarters ended March 31, encompassing parts of two fiscal years for the company, News Corp. reported a total of $28 billion in revenue and $3.38 billion in net income."

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