Business-press readers get even more reasons to oppose a Dow Jones sale to News Corp. from The New Yorker‘s rundown of Rupert Murdoch’s past misuses of news pages for personal or corporate interests (The Audit is mentioned toward the bottom, Audit Fans); and from the New York Times‘s great story on News Corp. Washington manipulations (the kind on which newspapers are supposed to report); and from The Wall Street Journal‘s piece on talks closing in on a sale. Word of the day: “insulted,” which Murdoch and his representatives seem to employ a lot in response to suggestions they might be rotten journalists. In non-Murdoch news, I also liked Larry Summers adding his sensible if not entirely original views on income inequality in today’s Financial Times. Saturday’s Journal has a terrific Kate Kelly and Serena Ng story on Bears Stearns’s bailout of its own cratering hedge funds, including beautifully lucid explanations of the firm’s complex subprime problems and fine inside-the-room detail.
Understated quoted of the day comes from an executive at a lender to Bear executives: “With all due respect, I think you’re underestimating the severity of the situation.”
Dean Starkman , CJR’s Kingsford Capital Fellow, runs The Audit, CJR.org’s business desk. Megan McGinley, a CJR intern, and Elinore Longobardi, an Audit staff writer, provided research. This story and the two following were supported with a grant from the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute, for which we are deeply grateful.