The Wall Street Journal, America's premier business newspaper since
its founding in 1889, has been sold to Rupert Murdoch, arguably the
world’s most voracious media magnate. There were reports that
he had been itching for years to incorporate the Journal and its parent
company, Dow Jones, into his empire.
He was willing to offer $60 for a Dow Jones share--or $5 billion for
the total purchase--at a time when the stock was trading just above
$36. By the day of the sale, Dow Jones shares had gained 59 percent
while Murdoch’s News Corporation lost almost 6 percent.
Murdoch’s career as a media owner began in 1952 after he inherited
his father’s newspaper shares and gradually bought more weeklies,
dailies, and magazines in his native Australia. He also founded the
country’s first national newspaper, The Australian. In 1968 he
expanded into Britain’s media market where he purchased the popular
News of the World, The Sun, as well as The Times and The Sunday Times,
both respected at home and abroad.
In 1973, Murdoch purchased his first paper in the United States, the
San Antonio Express-News, in 1976 the New York Post. Then he added
to his holdings a supermarket tabloid named Star. While continuing
to shop for print media deals in Australia and the U.S., he also moved
into, and since has dominated, the British pay-television market.
Murdoch could not acquire electronic media properties in the U.S.,
however, until in 1985 he decided to become a naturalized American
and thus satisfy the legal requirement that only citizens may own U.S.
television stations. He soon got his hands on Twentieth Century Fox
and the Fox Television Network and subsequently gave America The Simpsons
and the feature film Titanic.
In 1995, competitors charged that Murdoch’s ownership of the
Fox Network was illegal while he owned his Australian-based News Limited.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), however, disagreed when
it arrived at the controversial ruling that Murdoch’s ownership
of Fox was in the public’s best interest. Actually, the 24-hour
Fox cable news gradually eroded CNN’s market share so much that
Fox felt sufficiently emboldened to call itself “the most-watched
cable news channel,” a vast exaggeration.
Four years ago, Murdoch spent $6 billion on acquiring--from General
Motors--a 34 percent stake in Hughes Electronics, the operator of DirecTV,
America’s largest television system. In a deal with MCI Communications,
Murdoch developed a major news website and recently bought Intermix
Media, including MySpace.com, for $580 million.
Not satisfied with owning numerous different media in the English-speaking
world, Murdoch recently purchased the Turkish television channel TGRT
in partnership with a “Turkish recording mogul.” Rumors
have it that U.S. citizen Murdoch may have had to acquire Turkish citizenship
for the deal to be legal.
The acquisition of Dow Jones gives Murdoch control over what may arguably
be the world’s most entrenched organization, staff, and brand
name for the gathering and evaluation of economic news. He now owns
what it takes to implement his ambitious plan for the creation of a
global Fox business channel that can effectively compete against Reuters,
Bloomberg, and General Electric’s CNBC.
Had Murdoch amassed his world-wide multi-media empire during the administrations
of Theodore or Franklin Roosevelt, the Justice Department’s anti-trust
division would have raised serious legal objections to Murdoch’s
grandiose conglomerate of trusts. Today, however, his $5 billion purchase
of Dow Jones & Company may easily pass regulatory review, precisely
because Murdoch's media empire is not yet dominating any particular
product or region.
Murdoch has never wavered in using his electronic and print media, Fox
Television foremost among them, to push his ideological and business interests.
Those who argue that his insatiable grab for media power simply reflects
an aggressive businessman’s skillful exploitation of the free
market forget that America’s present oligopoly of media tycoons
was made possible by the lax rules Congress and the FCC established.
Let us not forget that any society wanting to be free and democratic
must vigilantly oppose those that try to stifle diversity of ownership
and viewpoints in its media.