Bancrofts Meet Murdoch, Continue to Hallucinate

Amusing portrayal of yesterday's Bancroft-Murdoch meeting in the NYT: Bancrofts propose ludicrous plan in which they, a fragmented family with no operating media experience, get to elect members of a journalistic-integrity-enforcement-board that Murdoch, the company's owner, will have no control over.  Murdoch's understandable and apparently polite response?  NFW. 

In the interest of Bancroft face-saving, these silly meetings will probably continue for a while, but unless GE or another, more journalistically-respectable suitor jumps in, the deal is as good as done.

Comments

[peter Kennedy]

Actually the Economist has a similar set up to protect aginst the ownership interests of the Financial Times, and it has worked well. The only reason that Murdoch said 'NFW' is that he does interfere in his papers editorial policy. So goodbye WSJ editorial independence!

[peter Kennedy]

Actually the Economist has a similar set up to protect aginst the ownership interests of the Financial Times, and it has worked well. The only reason that Murdoch said 'NFW' is that he does interfere in his papers editorial policy. So goodbye WSJ editorial independence!

[Henry Blodget]

Peter, thanks for thoughtful note. Does the Economist/FT arrangement allow the prior owner to select the board (at least initially)? This strikes me as being similar to a prior owner of a house having control over the future paint colors, renovations, etc.

If Murdoch meddles with the Journal in a way that makes it worse (the WSJ is rarely accused of not having a clear point of view), the paper's reputation (and, perhaps, business) will suffer. I understand the concern that there will effectively be daily line editing, but the idea that a paper's owners have no control over coverage, direction, etc., seems a bit dreamy.

[Rich]

After Paul Gigot's ridiculous comments on legalizing the illegal invasion of our borders, perhaps Rupert's interference in WSJ editorial comment might make cents.