US TITLES RUSH TO ATTEMPT STRANGULATION AS DIGGER ANNOUNCES BIRTH OF BIG APPLE FIGHT
Murdoch…NY edition of the Wall Street Journal

After news broke yesterday that Rupert Murdoch will take on the New York Times with an NY-based Wall St Journal offering, the Times itself was quick to rain on the old mogul’s parade.

“The New York Times has a very loyal and influential audience in New York and this campaign demonstrates that strength across various categories,” observed senior Veep Yasmin Namini, “The numbers tell the story.”

It’s thenet-savvy NYT loyalists Newscorp wants. The onsite version gets 20 million unique hits a month in the US,compared to only 12 million for the WSJ. A similar dominance pertains in the print versions.

Roop is disliked in the US even more than he is here,and this latest expansion has caused a backlash of negative journalist comment.

‘Why can’t American journalists steeped in the traditional values of their profession be loud and candid about the fact that Murdoch does not belong to our team?’ wrote Howell Raines in the Washington Post, adding, ‘His importation of the loose rules of British tabloid journalism, including blatant political alliances, started our slide to quasi-news. His British papers famously promoted Margaret Thatcher’s political career, with the expectation that she would open the nation’s airwaves to Murdoch’s cable channels. Ed Koch once told me he could not have been elected mayor of New York without the boosterism of the New York Post.’

Boosterism is a new one on me, but Rooperism doesn’t play as well in the States as it does over here. While the Washington post takes a generally Democrat line, it has never been known to headline with ‘IT WAS THE POST WOT DUN IT’ or indeed anything similar. Blatant bias (while sickening at times at regional level) is not common in American national Journalism

Other observers write off this latest Murdoch attack as the last dice-tumble from an old bloke who lacks the financial muscle anymore to follow through – and doesn’t truly understand the Net.

“It’s a mistake” said one, adding “his day has passed. Newscorp is as near as damnit broke. And the Avatar hedging shows he has neither the balls nor the muscle any more”.