Dow Newshounds x The Murdoch Menace

Tabloid devolution

… a group of Journal reporters yesterday urged the newspaper’s journalists to write individual letters opposing Mr. Murdoch’s offer to the three Bancroft family members on the Dow Jones board. Paul E. Steiger, the Journal’s managing editor, said that any journalists who wrote letters advocating opposition to the offer wouldn’t be involved in the coverage of News Corp.’s bid.

News Corp. Plans Strategy To Woo Family, Journalists (W$J): The media multinational that got a Florida court to establish the principle that journalists can be fired for insubordination for refusing orders to lie to the public wants to convince the Wall St. Journal newsroom that Rupert Murdoch is not an enemy of Journalism 1.0.

Now it needs to convince some of the world’s most well informed 10K-parsing skeptics that Murdoch does not intend to morph them into the Wal-Mart Journal.

Good luck with that.

News Corp., launching a two-pronged offensive, is planning to take its case for buying Dow Jones & Co. to the media company’s controlling shareholders, the Bancroft family, and directly to the newsroom of the company’s flagship, The Wall Street Journal.

If you happen to attend those meetings, could you leak me the PowerPoint?

The media conglomerate run by Rupert Murdoch is considering making its case to journalists detailing the company’s plans for capital investment, people close to News Corp. say. News Corp. would address a number of issues in its discussion, such as beefing up staffing levels in international news bureaus and putting more capital behind the company’s electronic properties, said one person close to News Corp. The plans to talk to journalists are preliminary, this person said, but would be aimed at fostering “recognition and desire about having a dialogue with a very important constituency” in Mr. Murdoch’s takeover attempt.

Newsroom staff are deemed an important constituency?

How many panzer divisions does the Pope have?

How many voting shares do Dow Jones employees control?

Any campaign would be structured to win over both the Bancroft family and the company’s reporters and editors, some of whom have begun agitating against the $60-a-share takeover bid from News Corp. and its chief, Mr. Murdoch. The Bancroft family, which controls 64.2% of Dow Jones’s voting power, is opposing News Corp.’s $5 billion bid. The family has said that members accounting for more than 50% of the overall voting power oppose the deal.

If you take part in the internal organizing effort, you cannot report on the internal organizing effort, notes the W$J managing editor:

News Corp.’s strategic efforts came as a group of Journal reporters yesterday urged the newspaper’s journalists to write individual letters opposing Mr. Murdoch’s offer to the three Bancroft family members on the Dow Jones board. Paul E. Steiger, the Journal’s managing editor, said that any journalists who wrote letters advocating opposition to the offer wouldn’t be involved in the coverage of News Corp.’s bid.

Steiger is new at this job: See W$J: New Top Man For Ich Bin Ein Berliner Age.

Under Murdoch, of course, you would not have to bother with such ethical niceties any longer.