“I’d love to hear more about the DJ / Murdoch deal — what was the incentive for each side on that one?”
I think I understand the incentive of the sellers (as far as keeping hold of the oped page - they had grown to think of the WSJ and particularly the stewardship of the editorials as like their own “baby”. In other words is was personal.
What $$$ incentives they had to give Murdoch to keep that hat in, I do not know.
What IS interesting from what I have read hits one of the points you made. As far as the main section “journalists” not as much has changed, at least not as much as I thought. Not only much of the WSJ staff was already at the time of the merger on “the Left”, the descendants of the old-line shareholders were on the side of the staff - who collectively opposed the deal, and feared Murdoch was going to make it over into a Conservative print version of Fox news. Those fears were raised directly by certain board members who either voiced disapproval of the deal or voted against it, or both. But much of the share power was in the hands of a law firm that represented a family trust, more so than the surviving family members and the law firm was squarely for the deal. Obviously, the fears the journals staff had have never come to pass.
In fact the Murdochs created some new “columns” within the main section, that are not called editorials but they are, and they are very Liberal. It’s like the Murdochs decided to start competing with the editorial page of their own paper, within their own paper.
I guess their is one area where the main sections of the WSJ are more Liberal than they were before. That is less in terms of the writing and the editorship of what is written than it is the editors choices of subject matter. There are more articles than before that have less to do with the business of the business world and more to with discussing “diversity”, “equity”, “social responsibility” and the like. And, the Murdochs use the WSJ in their own “climate change” agenda, not least of which is not a mere “reporting” of “electric” vehicles, but what is clearly unabashed promoting of electric vehicles with a poor attempt to disguise it as “reporting”,
Thanks!!