[via Mike Allen's Politico Playbook - this is not good news - I'm running an interview on Thursday's show with Tony Hendra, editor of a WSJ parody, the premise of which is the Murdochization of the paper - timely, by coincidence]
<snip>
Politico's Michael Calderone reports on our media blog: 'A Journal veteran, Brauchli's been regarded as a newsroom favorite, and seen by many as a buffer between the editorial staff and Murdoch. But now that's no longer the case. 'This is a clear sign that it's over-the Dow Jones culture is dead,' said one Journal staffer.'
......
Bad news indeed.
I've been reading the WSJ for years and often taken heat from my left and left-ish friends who think we should only get our biz commentary and analysis from the usual publications (The Nation, ZNet, etc). Sure, it's nice -- in a way -- to read Monbiot on the sinister glory that is Monsanto but it's usually much more useful to read a WSJ report on the company's activities.
I learned to appreciate the Journal in 1999 while consulting at Rohm and Hass Chemicals. That year, R&H merged with Morton International and, through a series of errors which even a one-eyed, three legged cat could have seen coming and avoided, found itself, post-acquisition, with a mountain of debt, even more superfund sites on its hands and an executive suite full of potential cardiac events.
Following the iron rule of corporate communication, R&H issued internal memos and press releases which had more in common with your five year old's riveting description of her day of high sea piracy with Capt. Jack Sparrow than the actually existing facts.
But when I read the WSJ's coverage, all the relevant information -- obviously meant to assist major shareholders and corporate managers, to act as a kind of no bullshit intel briefing -- was brilliantly laid out. The exciting events that unfolded during my consultancy at Wyeth Pharm, which I should write a book about, were equally well covered by the Journal.
Now, the market's war gods have ushered in the Murdoch era and everyone who, ignoring the grumpy old uncle written editorial pages, routinely turned to the WSJ for sober analysis and a sort of bracing honesty is nervous.
Understandably so.
Murdoch's NewsCorp is known for giving the world Technicolor propaganda and entertaining bullshit. Nice, but useless to the business class and those who watch them -- at least when deployed for decision-making purposes.
To see what I'm talking about watch the Fox Business Network. It's stuffed with "hotties", smiling faces and enthusiasm for the glories of capitalism, humanity's most diabolically delicious achievement.
What it's not filled with is information.
.d.