Rupert Murdoch is a busy busy man. His plan to take over the Wall Street Journal seems to have finally worked. The Bancroft family have for whatever reason 'relaxed' and Dow Jones's jewel will fall into the lap of Murdoch very soon.Ranked no.2 in today's The Guardian Media 100, Murdoch is as powerful as ever with his raft of dot.com assets including the mighty Myspace bought earlier this year - but is the acquisition of WSJ one step too far?
I am all for the free markets inevitably born out of capitalism, leading to the creation of moguls - but surely it is dangerous for so much media control to be in the hands of one man?
Media owners will always be around but such conglomeration is worrying. All our news will be skewed one way and one way alone. Within a couple of years the WSJ will be providing the content for Fox News - a concept I find scary and bewildering. The future of our industry is becoming very narrow indeed – ironic in this age of mass information and convergence some may say.
3 comments:
I think Murdoch reached one step too far about 100 steps ago.
Personally I thought Facebook at 100 was a nice touch, although I do find the media's jumping on its bandwagon - and then proclaiming it will surely die away - annoying as facebook has been going since about a year ago, but it's only now the finger-on-the-pulse journos at the ever so trendy guardian have started to take note.
Working the beat already Emma!
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