Sad Day for Journalism if Murdoch Swallows Newsday

Be afraid... be very afraid.

Remember Charles Foster Kane? The fictional newspaper publisher/editor in Citizen Kane who ran his publications on whim, punishing his enemies and rewarding his friends?

Lost in the flurry of the Pennsylvania primary and who's more elite than whom, the visit to America by the Pope, and $120-a-barrel crude oil was a story that should bring a tear to the eye of any journalist worth his salt, or any lover of independent journalism in this country.

Rupert Murdoch, chairman and managing director of News Corporation, owner of British tabloids, the Star supermarket tabloid, Sky Television, the Fox Network, the New York Post, and, most recently, Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, appears ready to gobble up Long Island's Newsday.

Newsday, founded by Alicia Patterson in 1940 and part of the ill-fated Tribune Company stable, is a jewel among suburban newspapers. Winner of 19 Pulitzer Prizes and countless other journalistic awards, it is probably a blessing that Bob Greene, the renowned Newsday investigative reporter, who assembled and ran an investigative team that became a model for such endeavors at countless other papers and led the paper to two public service Pulitzers, died two weeks ago.

With a circulation of close to 400,000 mostly on Long Island and in Queens, the paper never settled for the role of a suburban cover-the-garden-club outlet. It gave the big boys -- the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the city's tabloids -- a run for their money. This was particularly so when, flush with cash and ambition, it began New York Newsday in the five boroughs in 1985. (Never able to compete, the city experiment was pretty much finished by 1995.) Onetime home to Jimmy Breslin, Gail Collins, Pete Hamill, Sydney Schanberg and others, it was a thoughtful, interesting, serious read, but one which never forgot its roots and covered the local governments with a vengeance that the city publications just could never work up a deep interest in.

So, why assume this would change under the ownership of Murdoch? First is the fact that should Murdoch's $580 million bid to cash-starved Sam Zell be successful, it would put in one media mogul's hands the second-largest circulation paper in the country (Journal), the sixth (Post) and the 10th (Newsday). It was precisely this concentration of media ownership that the Federal Communications Commission's cross-ownership rules were designed to prevent. Why? Because the idea of a free press -- and the idea of antitrust regulation -- is to offer news consumers a broad panoply of angles, tones , views and ideas in the news they can access. So, even with the depth and breadth of media offerings in New York, having one owner directing news coverage of three of the largest publications cannot help but narrow the landscape.

Second, Murdoch is not known to be a hands-off owner who declares, "You do the journalism; I'll worry about paying the bills." He has basically turned the Post into a frothier, more rabid version of Fox News with a great gossip section. Yesterday, he forced out Wall Street Journal editor Marcus Brauchli four months after he took over the paper. While Murdoch has not yet Post-ified the Journal, hang on. He has removed the beloved A-head quirky feature from page one, plans to add more politics and sports, and is planning a glossy, luxury lifestyle magazine. In a sense, he is de-business-fying the Journal. Maybe this makes business sense, but it sure is reducing the options for readers -- do we really need another New York Times?

Now, if this is what Murdoch is planning for the Wall Street Journal, with its circulation of more than 2 million intensely devoted readers, its determined and unionized staff and its preeminent position among the country's news publications, what prayer is there for Newsday -- a small suburban gem that nurtures writers, investigative reporters and columnists, and takes its watchdog role seriously?

And what is the point of FCC regulation and antitrust theory if one man can rule the roost in even the nation's largest media market with no restrictions on his acquisitiveness? Is anyone asking whether this benefits the viewers and the readers? Does anyone care whether the result will be better journalism? More news coverage? Increased awareness and insight? Somehow, I think I know the answer.

Comments

[mervgriffn]

There is a greater variety of views being put forth from commercial media ownership than ever before. There are cable news channels that never existed. There are 8 daily newspapers in New York alone. The commercial news world is not hiding behind the cash register of the newsstand any more. Any one can access all of this commercial information on the web any time they want.
But has Ms. Hochberger, whose bio says that she teaches those under the age of 25 journalism, asked any of her students how they get their news? I’m sure she’ll find out that the non-commercial sector of the landscape (free blogs, THE HUFFINGTON POST, Drudge etc.) plays as great or greater a role than the commercial media sector in informing them. We can all disagree with Mr. Murdoch’s politics and the way he runs his papers. But does Hochberger really live in the present when she says that if he controls Newsday, a 400,000 circulation suburban newspaper read for it’s coverage of Long Island it truly “narrows the (media) landscape”? Newsday’s days of influence are long gone.
The barriers to entry in media are lower now than they’ve ever been. These are the glory days of a more democratic flavor of media influence. Ms. Hochberger fails to make the connection that during Newsday’s salad days, the days before the Huffington Post and two-way communication with the mass media, that her thoughtful post would have never had the opportunity to be heard.

[mervgriffn]

Ms. Hochberger writes for a blog that gets millions of page hits a month and is populated by hundreds of posts with a wide range of opinions. Should we be afraid that a lover of newspapers is buying into a fading business?
First, Ms. Hochberger (a journalism professor?) equates the story of the sale of a now irrelevant bedroom community newspaper with the visit by the leader of the Catholic Church and with unprecedented pricing of the dearest commodity that powers virtually all motor vehicles on the planet.
Second she tries to make the point that the gobbling up of this mostly wire service fed poblication is symptomatic of the downfall of the free press. Now that she has established that she has no credibility she then harkens back to a time when the media was truly controlled by a few. When Cyrus McCormick , Eugene Meyer Charles Foster Kane, and Adolph Ochs would own newspapers and could truly, through the brute strength of their money, influence public policy. Were those the good old days? Ms. Hochberger spouts some drivel about how the FCC shouldn’t allow this concentration of media ownership because it would be a threat to the “broad panoply of angles, tones , views and ideas in the news they can access.”
HAH! What slumber has this modern day Rip Van Winkle awakened from? (cont. )

[mjjcpa]

I don't know why he would want that rag. It's only good for litter boxes.

[jimmyaj]

Murdoch should be banned from doing business. Anywhere. His gospel of greed has poisoned free discussion all over the globe. We should be rid of his world-wide lie machine.

[patmancando]

I lived on Long Island when Bill Moyers was editor of Newsday. It was a wonderful newspaper. If we get a Democrat in as president this time, maybe Bill can be nominated for the FCC as safeguard of the future. Bill Moyers is one person who has been fighting for journalistic integrity for years now.

[ReElectNoOne]

I said in a post a short while ago that today's media needs to come with a disclaimer that it may not really be news, but is presented as entertainment.

Murdock is selling entertainment and advertising not news. This is what the FCC needs to start to look at. Is what is being touted as "news" really news or is it propaganda that strays from fact?

I am a firm believer of freedom of the press. I also believe that if something is published as "News" it MUST be factual and not tainted by any bias what so ever.

Other wise it must be clearly labeled as to its "truth content" and state if some or all of what is presented is either opinion, out of context or otherwise incomplete with respect to the whole story. Absent that it must be labeled as a work of fiction loosely based on facts.

News stated as fact should require foot notes to other resources available for verification. Why would truth need a reason to be afraid of other sources?

Tell people up front if they are reading for information or entertainment.

As for broadcast companies, they earn a fortune from ads from their TV shows. Prohibit advertisements on legitimate news broadcasts by way of an FCC rule and a condition of their license.

Eliminating competition for ad revenue, thus ratings, will lessen the need to compete in the entertainment value of their news reporting.

[MJ20]

When is this going to stop? The MSM is becoming a joke that is no longer funny. The news that we see on TV now, is no longer real. Even now, you go to a foreign news outlet and there are story angles on many of the issues of the day (the Iraq war, oil prices, the presidential election) that we never see. Americans who depend on the MSM for news live in a bubble of censorship and propoganda and have NO idea what is really going on. It is absolutely frightening. This Newsweek situation will just make it worse. Thank God for the blogs and the internet.

[Joeseo]

It ain't a gonna stop. I agree, thank God for the blogs and internet, yet all Americans know that will end. You simply can't stop Corporate America usurping freedoms of choice. There is just too much money at stake for legislators.

Canadian Internet will be there and Europe too. They have citizenship, we are simply consumers.

[bobajob]

In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called "alarmist" for pointing this out in his book, "The Media Monopoly". When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. More than one in four Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world's largest media corporation.

In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, "The new Media Monopoly", shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth.
(Source: Media Reform Information Center) http://www.corporations.org/media/

These corporations are overwhelmingly of a right-wing persuasion. No Republican is going to tolerate breaking up these monopolies, since they derive their support from them.

How can you sustain a democracy on this basis?

[KarenZipdrive]

It's really very simple.
When a media outlet shows an obvious bias or agenda that fails to serve the needs of its readers or viewers, we as a people must refuse to watch or read, and treat those who do with snickering disdain.
Like leisure suits, when a trend becomes a laughingstock (like Fox News), eventually those who once embraced it will abandon it out of a desire not to be ridiculed or thought to be out of step with others.
We all know the media culprits who have whored themselves out.
Like recalcitrant children who keep kicking the table leg to get attention, ignoring them will eventually cause them to stop the bad behavior and seek other means by which to get attention.
We should all take the time several times a year to contact the advertisers who support their biased tripe and threaten to stop using their products or services unless they cease to endorse these clowns with their ad dollars.
If just 100 of us called or wrote one sponsor in one day and complained, eventually they might get the hint.

[GuinnessJ5]

A sad day indeed if Pope Rupert Murdoch, the Infallible Right-winger, takes over NEWSDAY. But what can we expect? The GOP Fathers since the days of "Saint" Ronald Reagan have allowed big right wing money to become the new eucharist that binds the greedy faithful. Meanwhile the poorest of the poor and the dumbest of the dumb continue to vote the disingenuous GOP ticket for some inexplicable reason. Of course, the media, most of it tightly in the clutches of the Right, continues to distract most Americans with shallow stories. I mean the inane news of Lindsay Lohan and Brittany Spears tends to get more attention in the press than the atrocious war in Iraq and the ensuing economic recession/­depression looming over the heads of all of us except the one percent of Americans who are respopnsible for it.

[daddysboy]

The owner of the news corporation has been working diligently for years now to remove those restrictions on owning multiple media outlets and thanks to a very responsive neo-con controlled administration has been highly successful as you are aware. You can count on this acquisition. Any journalistic publication intending to survive the onslaught of base, lowest common denominator fluff sure to be injected at the command of murdoch should cease all printing and move to the internet now before it is too late. Let's close the respectable media publications in America before they are trivialized into the tabloid trash that is the hallmark of this man's media empire.

[lewes17266]

Pat Robertson is reportedly making bids to buy his local newspaper THE PILOT which regularly reports on his ramblings, prophesies, and exploits and even allows comments from their readers. It will be a sad day if this occurs.

[fruitpeel]

If this travesty is allowed, the FCC must be charged with dereliction of duty.

[daddysboy]

They already have failed in their duty to insure that our shared public airwaves are in fact shared and public. The last time major changes were made to the rules, it was not to strengthen their oversight capabilities, it was to weaken them even further thanks to some very serious lobbying and the actual presence of rupert murdoch at the hearings which in and of itself should have been highly questioned but wasn't really.

[iamFrank]

Ruth,
Afraid of what?

We have given up! The citizen of this country aren’t going to do anything, we want the media giants to continue to spoon feed us what they want us to believe.
“audiodramatist” “Don't like what Rupert is doing? Don't buy into it.”
Murdoch is only getting rich because we buy his papers or watch his cable programs, Turn Off the damn TV and stop buying the Murdoch press and then you will see real journalism instead of fabricated fairy tales. "Make your own Statement"
The FCC has added Journalistic “Truth” to the list of Nine word that are not to be spoken. The FCC could give a crap about enforcing the law when it concern the big media business, let one press print the Truth and see how long their doors stay open.
Besides the public doesn’t want the “Truth”, we are wearing the same Picasso glasses the media is wearing.

[ibivi]

Aren't there any anti-trust laws anymore? I don't want a world where Rupert Murdoch owns all media. He's well on his way. Stop him!