RUPERT MURDOCH AND THE MEDIA.

RUPERT MURDOCH AND THE MEDIA. One day those two terms might be used as synonyms for each other. That certainly seems to be Mr. Murdoch's dream. He already owns vast acres of the international media landscape, or his News Corporation does(Plug in News Corporation in the search box). But he yearns for more, and that "more" is the Wall Street Journal. It looks like he will have his way.The New York Times has an interesting article on Murdoch's ways of doing business. What particularly stands out is his nimble use of the government:

One firm focuses almost exclusively on parts of the tax code that affect the News Corporation. By taking advantage of a provision in the law that allows expanding companies like Mr. Murdoch's to defer taxes to future years, the News Corporation paid no federal taxes in two of the last four years, and in the other two it paid only a fraction of what it otherwise would have owed. During that time, Securities and Exchange Commission records show, the News Corporation's domestic pretax profits topped $9.4 billion.The News Corporation's outside lobbying team has been a veritable political Noah's ark. It has included Republicans like Ed Gillespie, former Republican Party chairman; former Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato of New York; and the firm headed by former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York. But it has also included former Democratic members of Congress, as well as several high-ranking Clinton administration officials, including Jack Quinn, former White House counsel.

The whole article is well worth reading. It is also an interesting tale of market behavior from oligopolistic markets, those with just a few large firms determining most policies. Oligopolistic markets are not the so-called free markets of conservative folklore. They tend to be pretty one-sided in how they allocate power to the sellers and the buyers.Then there is the whole question of having one man own so many of our media channels. Won't they all reflect mostly his opinions? The current owners of the Wall Street Journal worry about this:

"It is hard to imagine Rupert Murdoch publishing The New York Post in Midtown Manhattan, with all of his personal and political biases and business interests reflected every day, while publishing The Wall Street Journal in Downtown Manhattan with no interference whatsoever," James Ottaway Jr., a 5 percent shareholder and former director of Dow Jones, said recently.Members of the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones, have sought elaborate assurances from Mr. Murdoch that he will preserve the independence of The Journal's news coverage. Last night, advisers to both sides said they were close to reaching an agreement on editorial control, but it was unclear whether the Bancrofts would approve a deal. When he bought The Times of London in 1981 he gave similar assurances, but some former editors say he meddled with news operations anyway.

--J. Goodrich