Photo: NYTimes.com
Rupert Murdoch has today gone to — of all places — the Times to make a very public case for his Wall Street Journal bid. We were sold on the story by its photo alone, of Rupe luxuriating on a white couch — sorry, a “taupe sofa,” according to Richard Siklos and Andrew Ross Sorkin’s account — but it got even better as we read on. The mogul makes a number of specific points about how he’d improve the paper. He’s bored by some long articles and wants to take the Saturday Journal glossy to compete with the Times Magazine. He’d like to see more coverage of Washington. He reads but doesn’t quite “get” tech columnist Walt Mossberg. Then there are the Rupert classics: globalize and synergize. Television! India! China! (The Great Wall Street Journal?) Those ideas of change aside, Murdoch swears that he “won’t meddle” with the editorial side or cut staff. Unless he will: “I’m not saying it’s going to be a holiday camp for everybody,” he says. The paper’s union rep is already organizing an e-mail drive asking the Bancrofts to stay strong.
