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December 3, 2008 1:56:39 AM CST

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Cut the Charade: Let Rupert Have His Way With Journal

Posted May 1, 08 11:32 AM CDT in US,  Business 

(Newser) – Let’s stop kidding ourselves, Jack Shafer writes in Slate: Rupert Murdoch is seizing control of the Wall Street Journal, and we might as well be done with the “Special Committee” that was supposed to protect editorial independence. The Bancroft family insisted on the creation of the board, which then proved itself  "a set of high-paid flunkies" who sat on their hands as the paper’s top editor was forced out.

The Bancrofts were dead-on when they thought “the rotten old bastard would want to exercise the prerogatives of ownership and start making radical changes,” Shafer notes, but “what’s done is done is done.” It’s Murdoch’s paper and the “charade” of a buffer is just embarrassing. The writer would rather Rupe "ruin the Journal on the principle that a newspaper should belong to its owners.”

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Rupert Murdoch.   (AP Photo/Keystone, Peter Klaunzer)
News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.   (AP Photo/Tony Avelar, file)
Copies of the Wall Street Journal.   (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
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Rupert Murdoch • News Corp • Wall Street Journal • Bancroft family • Marcus Brauchli • editorial independence


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