The vacuum created by the decline of the credibility of print media leaves a huge opening that online forums can fill.  If newspapers such as the WSJ, NYT, WP actually reported and analyzed rather than disseminate "information" that serves power, they might not be fighting for their existence.  

These papers made it this long because they swallowed up the independent dailies, now they are about to be swallowed up by online, user generated publications.  It should be an exciting development.  

It will be very interesting to see whether the WSJ can survive the universal and fully justified contempt for all things Murdoch. All that paper -- and let's not forget all the rest of Dow Jones -- has is its credibility. The one thing Murdoch will never be able to buy is credibility. It's one thing to entertain the stupid with tits and ass fascism. It's another to be a source of pristinely accurate business and financial news that investors and speculators depend on for their economic survival.

It shouldn't take long before the rumors start flying that the Dow Industrials are being manipulated for Murdoch's personal and ideological benefit. The WSJ will not be far behind. Murdoch's reputation is well-deserved and ineradicable -- nobody is going to put their money on thinking the hyena has gone vegetarian. There are a number of rival financial publications that have been struggling to grab a share of the WSJ's pie for some time. Their day has come.

Ironically, this whole saga serves as an excellent example of the wisdom of a confiscatory inheritance tax -- the bane of the editorial board's existence. The parasitic Bancroft family has been raking in an excessive income from the property for generations without lifting a finger to participate in its management. Now they have chosen to sell their crippled heritage to an evil clown for cash. Their lazy indifference to their stewardship has rewarded them with a multi-billion dollar windfall while other Americans spend all their waking hours at hard labor just to survive. But the WSJ would point out that they NEED the incentive to just keep on partying.

FDR's response to progressive demands: "I agree. Now go out and make me do it."

The silver lining of this takeover is that when Murdoch destroys the credibility of the Journal--as he must if it is to fit in with his business plan--he will be removing the primary pillar of the editorial page's influence as well. In this regard his ownership is a kind of poisoned chalice.

That's not much of a silver lining. I was kind of hoping that we were already at the point where the WSJ editorial board has little credibility. I think we'll get nothing out of this. The editorial board's product will get even more play on Fox News, and the news section will become slyly unreliable...used like the UK Telegraph, to spread disinformation at key moments.

I think your take on this is grounded in the reality of the situation.  I'm not sure what planet Alterman is on right now with respect to his "silver lining".

This event can only lead to one thing and that is the continuation of the "Foxification" of the mainstream print media.

Phil Agre at UCLA has this take on the Wall Street Journal which is, I think, a pretty accurate statement of it's function up to now.

The Wall Street Journal's opinion page is the most important conservative publication, and it is often described as a bulletin board for the conservatism. A better metaphor, however, would be a war room. Day by day, the Wall Street Journal's editors detect liberal arguments coming over the horizon, and immediately they gather up and distribute the arguments that conservatives will need to rebut them.

With Murdoch's acquisition, how much more valuable will this publication be as a tool for the expanded dissemination and validation of the neocon point of view?

Silver lining?  Unlike Alterman, I see none.

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity"

as reliable sources of information continue to be swallowed by the feculent Ruppert Murdoch. My fellow liberal friends were always surprised when I told them the Wall Street Journal had terrific journalists. Far superior to the New York Times and other newspapers. Their editorials were typically cartoonish/reactionary. But at least a semblance of professionalism existed among their reporters. You didn't have Judit Miller and Jayson Blair calamities. Within six months if not sooner the WSJ will be transformed into a scandal sheet.

Intrepid Liberal Journal

Now I'm not a businessman -- far from it -- but what I've heard from outside sources who would know is that the people who read the WSJ do so because they rely on the news they get to make financial decisions. That means the news has to be accurate, it has to be timely, and it has to be as unbiased as possible. To paint the picture in broad brush strokes, if someone is considering investing in an Iraq recovery effort, they are going to want to make sure that there will be a recovery effort to invest in, and if things are going badly enough that it will hamper any such effort, they're going to want that information straight up. Likewise, if they want to invest in alternative energy, they are going to want straight facts about the costs of such energy, the sort of impact it will have, how alternative energy will affect the oil market, and so on.

Nothing I have ever heard about Rupert Murdoch leads me to believe that the information that would come from a News Corp-owned WSJ would meet this standard, and the people who rely on the WSJ for news that will make them money are going to be anywhere from sorelly disappointed to mad as hell. Like someone said above, all the WSJ has is its credibility, and once that's gone, you might just as well save the ink and not cut down the trees it would take to print the thing.

I for one welcome our new Twitter overlords. @Omir55

Golly gee that enlightened lefy Max Boot will seem so out of place working for Murdock! This is much worse than taking over myspace.  Rolling eyes!

Stray Roots Message Board,Thus far unmoderated! Dameocrat Blog