Can Rupert Murdoch save the newspaper business?
Big changes are afoot for the media, and especially for newspapers. Even the newspaper industry’s latest attempt to sound a cheerful note can’t hide the deep anxieties that the Internet, corporate consolidations, and a changing advertising market have wrought upon the highly competitive news business. The latest shakeup to hit the media industry is Thomson’s ...
Big changes are afoot for the media, and especially for newspapers. Even the newspaper industry's latest attempt to sound a cheerful note can't hide the deep anxieties that the Internet, corporate consolidations, and a changing advertising market have wrought upon the highly competitive news business. The latest shakeup to hit the media industry is Thomson's mega-merger with Reuters, but more shakeups (a Microsoft-Yahoo! deal?) may be on the way.
Big changes are afoot for the media, and especially for newspapers. Even the newspaper industry’s latest attempt to sound a cheerful note can’t hide the deep anxieties that the Internet, corporate consolidations, and a changing advertising market have wrought upon the highly competitive news business. The latest shakeup to hit the media industry is Thomson’s mega-merger with Reuters, but more shakeups (a Microsoft-Yahoo! deal?) may be on the way.
Enter Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born media mogul many U.S. liberals rank somewhere between Satan and George W. Bush on their list of bogeymen. Murdoch recently announced his intention to purchase Dow Jones, which owns the Wall Street Journal, for $5 billion. Dow Jones is controlled by the Bancroft family, which is reportedly divided on the takeover bid. Staffers at the Journal aren’t thought to be excited about having their august paper bought by the tabloid king, either.
As if to assuage fears that he can’t be trusted with still more power, Murdoch announced today that his News Corp. is going carbon neutral. But he also signaled that he wouldn’t raise his bid for Dow Jones, sending shares of the company down five percent. That doesn’t mean he’s giving up. As Fortune magazine’s media business analyst Devin Leonard explained to FP today, Murdoch sees Dow Jones and the Journal as critical components of his expansive new vision—a vision that just might represent the future of news.
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