The Los Angeles Times published an article yesterday titled, “Dow Jones deal prompts call to broaden cross-ownership ban,” that included this passage:

“Federal rules try to limit media power by prohibiting a company from owning a newspaper and a TV station in the same city.

Billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. faces no such hurdle in its pending deal to acquire Dow Jones & Co. and with it the country’s second-largest paper, the Wall Street Journal…”

I think it may be something of an overstatement to say that there are no regulatory hurdles. I wonder if the authors were aware of the following:

• Mr. Murdoch recently told Time Magazine that he would “love to challenge” the New York Times with the Wall Street Journal.
• Ken Chandler, a former Murdoch protege who once ran the New York Post, told the Boston Herald that Murdoch is, “looking at taking on The New York Times. I think (Murdoch) is going to try to do to The New York Times what his Fox News did to CNN.”
• The Guardian reported that, “Mr Murdoch is planning to beef up the Wall Street Journal’s political and news reporting so it can compete with the New York Times…”
• FCC Commissioner Michael Copps recently said, “It’s interesting to hear the ‘experts’ claim the transaction faces no regulatory hurdles. Not so fast! This deal means more media consolidation and fewer independent voices, and it specifically impacts the local market in New York City.”

With Murdoch already owning major newspapers and broadcasters in New York, and the evidence of his own statements and other reporting confirming his intention to compete locally in the city, it seems to me that there is good cause for the FCC to investigate the acquisition. In any case, there appears to be no cause to flatly declare that the deal faces “no such hurdles,” as reported in the L.A. Times (which itself faces regulatory hurdles with its parent, the Tribune Company, owning both the paper and KTLA TV).

Blake Fleetwood has a curious article at the Huffington Post that quotes Bill Clinton saying that…

“…the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal is even more right wing and irrational than most of the commentators on Fox News.”

That’s the not the curious part. The article continues with Clinton relating an incident wherein the business of a supporter of his was being dogged by the Journal’s editorial board. The supporter arranged a meeting with the board to present his case, but the board told him that they didn’t care to hear it. They told him that they were only going after him because he was a supporter of Clinton. Clinton told him to send a check to Bob Dole, which the supporter did, and the attacks from the Journal stopped.

That’s a story that is both shocking and predictable at the same time. Anybody who’s familiar with the Journal’s editorial bias wouldn’t be surprised by that sordid tale. But anybody who cares about journalistic ethics would still be appalled. The power that is wielded by influential media organs like the Journal is substantial, and that power is magnified in the broadcast media world. Clinton has something to say about that too…

“With regard to media consolidation, the rules were relaxed too much.”

That’s undeniably true. Unfortunately, Clinton doesn’t acknowledge that it was the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which he signed into law, that produced the relaxation of which he now complains. Common Cause documented the legislation, and its impact, in a 2005 study:

The Fallout From the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (pdf)

• Lifted the limit on how many radio stations one company could own. The cap had been set at 40 stations. It made possible the creation of radio giants like Clear Channel, with more than 1,200 stations, and led to a substantial drop in the number of minority station owners, homogenization of play lists, and less local news.
• Lifted from 12 the number of local TV stations any one corporation could own, and expanded the limit on audience reach. One company had been allowed to own stations that reached up to a quarter of U.S. TV households. The Act raised that national cap to 35 percent. These changes spurred huge media mergers and greatly increased media concentration. Together, just five companies – Viacom, the parent of CBS, Disney, owner of ABC, News Corp, NBC and AOL, owner of Time Warner, now control 75 percent of all prime-time viewing.
• The Act deregulated cable rates. Between 1996 and 2003, those rates have skyrocketed, increasing by nearly 50 percent.
• The Act permitted the FCC to ease cable-broadcast cross-ownership rules. As cable systems increased the number of channels, the broadcast networks aggressively expanded their ownership of cable networks with the largest audiences. Ninety percent of the top 50 cable stations are owned by the same parent companies that own the broadcast networks, challenging the notion that cable is any real source of competition.
• The Act gave broadcasters, for free, valuable digital TV licenses that could have brought in up to $70 billion to the federal treasury if they had been auctioned off. Broadcasters, who claimed they deserved these free licenses because they serve the public, have largely ignored their public interest obligations, failing to provide substantive local news and public affairs reporting and coverage of congressional, local and state elections.
• The Act reduced broadcasters’ accountability to the public by extending the term of a broadcast license from five to eight years, and made it more difficult for citizens to challenge those license renewals.

I’m glad to see that the former president finally recognizes the harm he’s done by caving in to Republicans in Congress and putting his signature on that bill, although he didn’t actually take any responsibility for it. By way of restitution, he may want to advise his wife come out strongly in favor of rolling back the media consolidation that he unleashed. A brief statement to that effect would help to repair the damage and advance the issue. She might might want to use this statement by John Edwards as a model for her own:

“It’s time for all Democrats, including those running for president, to stand up and speak out against this [News Corp./Dow Jones] merger and other forms of media consolidation.”

So far, Edwards is the only candidate to address this issue, and he deserves enormous credit for exhibiting such courage. The media is a potentially devastating enemy – just ask Howard Dean. However, Hillary Clinton has the greatest moral obligation to take a stand given what her husband saddled us with. The question is, can we expect her to do so after having accepted $20,000, so far, from Murdoch and his associates, who are still promising to raise more money for her campaign?

Update: Paul Hogarth at Beyond Chron attended a session with Hillary Clinton at the YearlyKos conference and asked her what her position is now on the Telcom bill. “I don’t know,” she said, “ask Al Gore.” That’s a fairly pathetic attempt at displaced blame. Gore does bear some responsibility for the legislative development of the bill, but it was Clinton who signed it. And Gore has redeemed himself by becoming a vocal opponent of consolidation and an advocate of media reform.

R. I. P. Wall Street Journal

“It’s sad,” said a veteran reporter at one of the domestic bureaus, who did not want to be named because of concerns over his career. “We held a wake. We stood around a pile of Journals and drank whiskey.”

Something to think about…

And, as if we needed confirmation of the trainwreck ahead of us, Murdoch’s New York Post didn’t bother to report the DJ sale on its front page, or even its front news section. However, in their business section article they portrayed the sale in glowing terms:

“The Dow Jones group, including Barron’s and Dow Jones Newswires, will now be folded into the global reach of News Corp., adding more international clout to the Journal and the company’s other brands,”

I think they may have meant, “…adding more international clot to the Journal…”

Update: FCC Commissioner, Michael Copps, reminds us that there is still a regulatory process to be completed and that it will be “no slam dunk.”

Copps: “It’s interesting to hear the ‘experts’ claim the transaction faces no regulatory hurdles. Not so fast! This deal means more media consolidation and fewer independent voices, and it specifically impacts the local market in New York City.”

Amen. I’d be surprised if the Republican-dominated Commission blocked the sale, but the debate is a worthy one and Commissioner Copps, with his ally Commissioner Jonathan Adelman, could use the opportunity to shine more light on the extent to which media consolidation is harmful to journalism and to the public interest.

It’s Not Too Late!

Murdoch wants a more “business-friendly“ finance channel.

Despite reports this morning that News Corp. has secured enough support from the Greedy Bastards Bloc of Dow Jones’ controlling Bancroft family, this fight is by no means over. The vote amongst the trustees is going to be close and the players could still switch sides, as many have been doing throughout the process. After the Bancrofts vote, the deal will be put before the rest of the shareholders later this fall. Today’s results are not determinative.

Rupert Murdoch’s latest ploy to tip the scales in his favor appears to be an outright bribe of wavering Class B shareholders, whom he has offered an extra $30 million dollars for their capitulation. But he cannot offer any such bribes to other retail or institutional holders.

There are heroes in this story who have demonstrated integrity and honor, notably Christopher Bancroft, Leslie Hill, and the Ottoway family, who have all been persistent opponents of this deal. But too many of the remaining clan are more concerned with fattening their wallets than preserving an American publishing institution. So if they are too consumed by their own avarice to act in the best interests of the treasure that has been bequeathed to them, it is up to concerned citizens to step in and make their voices heard. But “What can we do?” you ask.

If the Class B shareholder vote for control of Dow Jones exceeds 30% in favor of the sale, Murdoch still has to pull almost all of the non-family votes in order to prevail. It is generally presumed that this is a given, but several details make the outcome less clear. For one, many retail investors never vote in these elections, making it harder to achieve a majority which is based on the total shares, not the total of those voting. This would force Murdoch into an expensive campaign to solicit votes. Another factor is that the bulk of these shares are held by institutions and mutual funds. That’s where you come in.

The list below are the mutual funds with the largest holdings in Dow Jones & Co. If you see any funds in which you are invested, this would be a good time to contact the firm and let them know that you intend to divest your holdings unless they commit to vote their shares against the sale.

Check your own portfolio to see if any of your funds are holders of Dow Jones. These funds have a fiduciary responsibility to vote in the best interests of all shareholders. Rupert Murdoch has not proven himself to be a sound financial manager in the U.S. newspaper business. His New York Post has lost money for as long as he has owned it. What’s more, another bidder for Dow Jones, MySpace founder Brad Greenspan, has promised to match Murdoch’s $60.00 bid while leaving the company independent and offering a proposal that forecasts a $100.00 share price. The Dow Jones board has failed to consider this offer.

You may be thinking that these big investment firms are not going to shift their investment strategies because you called to complain. That may be true for some, but customer service is a major concern of any retail business, and if enough customers express themselves, the company cannot ignore them.

More importantly, in the end it doesn’t matter that much if they do ignore you. When you divest your shares in the fund, the company can no longer vote them in the Dow Jones deal. If they end up not being voted at all, Murdoch’s majority is placed a little further away. And [This is important] the vote only needs to shift about couple of percentage points to sink the deal. With approximately 30% in play, this is entirely achievable.

If you believe in free, diverse, and independent media, this is the time to put your money where your ideals are. Feel free to reinvest the shares you withdraw in some nice little socially responsible mutual funds. If a people-powered movement can keep the WSJ out of Murdoch’s clutches, we can all feel proud for having been a part of it. And, in any case, you’ll sleep better knowing that you tried.