CJR Parses the 'Anonymice'

CJR Daily's Dean Starkman produces yet another smart article (the third, or maybe fourth in a row) in the Audit section, correctly analyzing the latest turn of the screw in the Dow Jones-Rupert Murdoch takeover struggle.

A New York Times article on Monday quoted an unnamed source at Dow Jones as saying that the Murdoch merger was delaying layoffs at the Wall Street Journal.

Starkman observes as follows:

I know it's subtle, but let me translate: Newsroom, stop opposing the sale or you'll lose your jobs, and then where will you be? Without a job. And then how will you feel? Bad, right?

. . . Audit Readers, remember what I told you: Top DJ executives and editors now have powerful incentives to favor the sale. Readers interested in the long-term health of the business press shouldn't care about executive severance packages, editors' guaranteed jobs, reporters' unguaranteed jobs, the value of options enhanced by the Murdoch offer—or anything, really, other than how best to preserve a vital information source.

Glad to see such spot-on reporting in CJR Daily's Audit section, which is emerging from a lengthy funk and is far improved.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.



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