The New York Times has been taking a close look at Rupert Murdoch's activities at the Wall Street Journal. The NYT and WSJ are, of course, rivals. So maybe this was never going to be the most dispassionate of pieces.
Anyway, according to the NYT article, headlined Remaking the Journal, Murdoch has already set in motion "what amounts to an overhaul of the look, content and staff of one of the world's most prized newspapers."
It then quotes an anonymous executive of the WSJ's owner, Dow Jones, who says: "He's already calling the shots, making decisions. We know that's his MO, but it's amazing to see."
What is more amazing is the amount of innuendo crammed into an article based on little but prejudice. Example:
There has even been talk of a front page with articles short enough to start and end there rather than continuing on inside pages, and of taking the words 'Wall Street' out of the paper's name to give it broader appeal, according to people who have been briefed on the matter. Both ideas were quickly dismissed, but the fact that they were raised even semiseriously shows how unconstrained by tradition the new owner is, these people said.
Get that. Here are two false rumours, but we'll repeat them anyway.
Then the writer, Richard Pérez-Peña, quotes a j-school academic who tells us that Murdoch's methods - swiftness of decision-making, for instance - are unusual. "He's operating like a young man who's bought a sports car and can't wait to hop in and drive it around." So what?
There are sideswipes at Murdoch for being "a frequent presence in Dow Jones offices" and his habit of asking employees about their work while displaying "an astonishing command of detail about what they do, from production schedules to running the presses." How dare he have such knowledge!
According to Pérez-Peña, "there is anxiety about changes, real or rumoured" but he does add that these are "tempered by optimism." No difference then from the anxieties among staff after any takeover of any company at any time.
The article registers surprise that Murdoch, "who tends to muse out loud about big ideas that might be dropped later" (does he?), should have said that the pay wall on the Journal's online site WSJ.com might be taken down.
Then comes a classic piece of speculative innuendo:
A year from now the newspaper could have a large contingent of reporters and editors hired under Mr. Murdoch and not rooted in The Journal's traditions. They would also be people who did not live through the anxious months when many newsroom employees opposed the takeover and questioned Mr. Murdoch's journalistic ethics. "It has the makings of a pretty big cultural shift," a veteran reporter said.
The italics are mine, of course. Could and would. Those little conditional words that allow a reporter to say anything he likes. There's more, but note the final sentence which, in a sense, makes a nonsense of all that has gone before.
A "veteran reporter" is quoted as saying: "A lot of us are at least a little worried about what this place will become. But right now our attitude is, wait and see."
Yes, that's about it. But that's the case when any new owner moves into any new business. Yet it took 1,700 words to reach that point. There is, in other words, no story. And journalists have the gall to accuse Murdoch's media outlets of unethical journalism.
