Unspun

Unspun‘s friend Qvut is a journalism refugee.

As someone who cares about journalism, he’s watched with dismay how journalism standards have deteriorated over the past few years as newspapers struggle, and mostly fail, to come to terms with a world shaped by technological forces. So he’s left journalism to do other more worthwhile things in his life.

This does not stop him from musing at the goings on in the journalistic world though and lately Unspun has be regaled by his rants about the Wall Street Journal and its sale to Rupert Murdoch.

His take is this:

The caterwauling about Murdoch’s takeover of Dow Jones, particularly the Journal has been extremely disingenuous. All this breast beating and self-mortification over Murdoch’s takeover is a bit over the top.

The Journal, for Heaven’s sakes, is only a newspaper and a not-particularly well-managed one at that. In Asia especially, the paper has been in terminal decline for the past decade due to budget-driven staff cuts. These have made the paper basically irrelevant for much of Asia, outside of the overwhelming China-centric nature of its coverage.

As an example, the Journal left Indonesia, S.E. Asia’s largest economy and home to the world’s largest Muslim population, virtually uncovered for more than a year after a correspondent departed due to medical reasons. The Journal has also never covered East Timor first-hand over the past two years of turmoil despite the fact that ET is about to become a major regional oil and gas exporter. Too far from China to be of any interest, the Journal picked up ET copy from the Washington Post.
So there is little journalistic integrity or excellence to loose even if Murdoch is who they demonize him to be, the Kali-like Destroyer of  Newspapers.

Speaking of integrity, a group of the Journal’s reporters based in China/Hong Kong signed and sent a public letter in May decrying Murdoch’s takeover attempt and threatened to actually resign if his acquisition came to pass. The letter also asserted that Murdoch will inevitably interfere with editorial decisions and blunt sharpish coverage of China, where Murdoch has ingratiated himself  with the leadership to further his corporate  expansion into the Chinese market.

Now that Murdoch has bought over the Journal it would be interesting to see if the Journal reporters that were so full of righteous indignation and integrity carry out their threats.

If they don’t then it is an indictment of the pre-Murdoch Journal, particularly its “Asian” edition as the party that could only talk-the-talk. Murdoch, for all his faults, walks-the-walk. For that he deserves the laurel leaves for humbling the poseurs.

Unspun, who’s ranted against the Journal before, thinks Qvut has a point.