Business as Usual

So I was listening to NPR yesterday morning and heard the hue and the cry being issued over at the Dow Jones corporation like shares of common stock over the takeover bid being hoisted up the flagpole by rogue pirate Rupert Murdoch. He might take over The Wall Street Journal.

The fear is great. Editorial standards may be compromised. The independence of this flagship of journalism may be steered instead to serve the biased business interests of Murdoch's vast financial empire. And, most clearly, there is a fear that whoever might mount a successful takeover bid - be it Murdoch, Mordor or Moloch - will in the end slash the company and leave it in tatters and ruins, a shell of its former glory. NPR's David Folkenflik can be heard probing the gravitas of the situation, asking after the concerns of the Bancroft family, Dow's major shareholders, and wondering aloud if this "exemplar of American journalism" will be sullied.

Give me, as they say, a break.

To blanch at such possibilities is, to my lights, simply to confuse a corporate mouthpiece like the Wall Street Journal with something of actual value to the Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness in the day-to-day existence of the majority of American citizens. You know, things like drinkable water, clean air, secure jobs, and affordable health care. The folks at NPR's business desk seem unable to think of this newspaper in terms other than that which one, in days gone by, would have considered reserved for national resources (which can - but should not be - strip mined) or national ideals (which can - but should not be - compromised).

But this takeover is not of that class of debacles. It is precisely the sort of thing the "independent" editorship of the Journal has been championing since...well, there's never been a time they haven't championed it, actually. Leveraged buyouts making the way for tyrant CEO's to radically gut once-proud and -prosperous companies leaving mountains of pink slips, decimated communities and worthless pension funds in their wake is the very gut and gristle of what the Journal lauds on its pages. Simply look at Flint, Michigan or listen to glib economists gush about sneaky corporateering to the likes of Tony Robbins or on financial websites: the business of this country is business, and this is what savvy businessmen do.

So, as for me and my house, there will be no tears shed for a lost Eden of journalistic independence unstained by the apple juice of Murdoch's business interests. Murdoch, for my money, is just the most recent and the most visible of the snake-oil salesmen who have been running this country since the Boston Tea Party: a bunch of Anglos who are thinking with their pocketbooks, disguised in native drag to make us all buy the ruse that they actually belong here, dumping our Life, Liberty, etc. over the side of the ship in the name of their representation and happiness.

Let the Wall Street Journal hang, say I. And may its readership - who so often seem beyond the touch of conscience or consequence - tremble in the shadow of its swaying. Now that would be an exemplar to American journalism. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Folkenflik?