The call from the Ivory Tower just wasn't strong enough to stop media mogul Rupert Murdoch from buying Dow Jones & Company. But, it came really close.
"Murdoch also said the media's harsh coverage of him during negotiations with the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones, almost squashed the deal," wrote New York Post reporter Peter Lauria in the August 9 New York Post.
From the time negotiations were made public in April until the time the deal was announced on August 1, Murdoch took cheap shot after cheap shot by many of the talking heads in the media.
"I spent the better part of the past three months enduring criticism normally leveled at a genocidal tyrant," Murdoch said.
He wasn't kidding. The Los Angeles Times, in a column by Tim Rutten compared him to a tyrannical dictator on June 6. "[P]robably not quite as frightening as the day we learned Kim Jong Il has the bomb, but close ... very close."
The deal for the Wall Street Journal is believed to be an effort to improve News Corp.'s Fox Business Channel, set to launch on October 15.
"If I didn't think [Dow Jones] was such a perfect fit - with such unlimited potential to grow on its own and in tandem with News Corp.'s assets - believe me, I would have walked away."
