Brian Cathcart points out a few home truths to the staff of the Wall Street Journal as they continue to complain about the likely takeover of the paper's owners, Dow Jones, by Rupert Murdoch. In his New Statesman column, he argues that "the daily hymn-sheet of the free market" is hardly in a strong position to complain about a free market acquisition."
I like this analogy. "Let us imagine", writes Cathcart, "that a century-old manufacturing company based in a midwestern town is being stalked by a corporate asset-stripper. The company turns a modest profit and is both the backbone of the local economy and, through tradition and good works, the heart of the community. What does the Wall Street Journal say?
"It says bad luck, the predator can take your company and pull it apart in the name of efficiencies, synergies and the like, and your town must suffer because the market must have its way. That has been the Journal's message for generations...
"So you might think that, when Rupert Murdoch came knocking on the Journal's door with his $5bn takeover bid, the paper's staff, and particularly the senior staff, would put their hands up and go peacefully to the fate they have wished upon countless other managers and employees.
"But no, the Journal is special, we are told, and shouldn't be bought and sold like other businesses. And Murdoch is especially bad, so he must make pledges not to meddle with the paper's editorial independence. From this distance (both geographical and ideological), it is a little hard to swallow."
Clearly, Cathcart is not enamoured with Murdoch, nor is he in favour of him acquiring yet another paper. But it's the Journal staff's stinking hypocrisy that upsets him. He writes: "It is... difficult to resist the feeling that if there is one newspaper in the world that deserves Rupert Murdoch, it might be the Journal."
