WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

Clark Hoyt, the new public editor of The New York Times, is right:

The New York Times has been very soft covering the Sulzberger family, and very agressive covering the Bancrofts.

The lead of his great column:

HERE’S a story I’d like to read — and I’ll bet you would too.

One of America’s leading companies, a world-famous brand, has hit a rough patch.

Its revenues and profits are declining, its debt rating has been downgraded, and a leading Wall Street house has advised investors to dump their shares.

With sales of its core product falling, the company is raising the price and investing heavily in new technology that is slow to pay off.

A major outside shareholder has been agitating to end the stock structure that has allowed one storied and powerful family to run the company for four generations. Another family in the same troubled industry appears ready to throw in the towel, will this family be able to stick together and find new success?

This is dramatic and important stuff.

And it’s the kind of story you often read on the front page or the Sunday Business front of The New York Times.

But you haven’t read this one in full, sweeping style because the company is The New York Times, and the family is the close-knit and extraordinarily private Ochs-Sulzbergers, descendants of Adolph Ochs, who came up from Chattanooga, Tenn., in 1896, bought the failing New-York Times and put it on the path to greatness.

Hoyt is a former Knight-Ridder editor.

I met him several times in the past and I’m sure he is going to be a good public editor.

Newspaper ombudsmen are always controversial figures.

Clark Hoyt is going to be one of the most controversial ones.

A smart New York friend of mine sent me his two cents on Murdoch and Dow Jones:

First, Murdoch doesn’t invest $5 billion to lose money or destroy the product he buys.

He’s not an idiot.

He’ll put money into the WSJ to build it up.

He gives his readers what they want.

Readers of the SUN want naked breasts, and he gives them Page Three.

Readers of the WSJ want solid, reliable business news.

He’ll make damn sure they get it or he can kiss his five billion goodbye.

And, as he joked in an interview with TIME: if they want Page 3 girls in the WSJ, he’ll make sure they all have MBA’s.

As far as political slant, the WSJ editorial policy is already so far to the right that it makes Murdoch look like a flaming liberal.

So, my bottom line is that he won’t destroy the WSJ, he may make it better, and he will squeeze every ounce of energy
out of the staff which is probably what has them all up in arms in the first place.

Amen.

(Photo by David Mariuz)

Le Tour de France started in London in a big way.

Like Il Giro in Italy, Le Tour de France is a fabulous “brand extension” from newspapers!

Conrad Black goes to jail.

The Daily Telegraph fails to recognize that he saved the paper and The Spectator.

He is not another Robert Maxwell, but has been presented like him.

Wrong.

They were crooks, but at least Lord Black improved his papers.

Journalists must accept the fact.

News Corporation and Dow Jones agree about the sale.

The Bancroft family wanted another buyer but nobody, nobody, offered more than Murdoch.

So, they will sell.

The New York Times is in its new building.

But the financial results are worse than ever.

The Sulzberger family and their (poor) business managers must be accountable for the failure.

The Apple iPhone is a success.

Apple and AT&T sold more than one million sets in the first week.

They could sell more than 10 million sets before the end of the year.

The new Independent on Sunday is doing better than the critics expected.

Well, we were almost alone when all the bloggers were negative.

The new, compact, Sunday news magazine works.

The new ET in Greece confirms its success.

Again, against the conventional view.

INNOVATION was right.

And the ET team did a super job!

Ken Auletta, media correspondent from The New Yorker, writes a long story about the Murdoch bid for Dow Jones.

Read it and you will see how the deal is almost done.

Money, money, money.

Don’t be confused.

The Bancrofts don’t care about quality journalism.

They never re-invested their profits.

They were there just for the easy and big dividends.

While Dow Jones was left behind by Bloomberg, Thompson, Reuters…

So, Murdoch can do it better.

Like him or not.

He is a newspaper publisher.

As Jeff Jarvis says in his great blog, they are just “absentee owners.”

I had brunch today in New York with a former editor of The Wall Street Journal.

His opinion:

The Murdoch bid is an offer that the Bancroft family can not refuse.

Why?

Because the $5 billion bid is big, big money.

The Bancrofts will not get more than that.

If they refuse the offer, the management, the journalists and the shareholders of Dow Jones will ask them to invest more… and at the same time the value of the stock could deteriorate very quickly.

So… get the money now and run.

Robert Thompson is a good friend of the current editor of The Wall Street Journal.

And Murdoch has more plans for the future than the lazy Bancrofts, who are interested mainly in good dividends.

It makes a lot of sense.

Shares of Dow Jones gained almost 2% to close at $59.01 Friday on news that Pearson, publisher of the Financial Times was seeking partners for a joint counteroffer for the company that would compete with Rupert Murdoch’s $5 billion bid.

One company Pearson has approached is General Electric, which owns business news channel CNBC.

If, on the other hand, Murdoch acquires Dow Jones, the Journal will compete more directly with the FT in Europe and Asia, and News Corp.’s plans for a Fox News business channel — which would compete with CNBC — will gain traction.

The Bancrofts, who are reluctant to put the Journal’s editorial integrity in Murdoch’s hands, are expected to warm to a Pearson approach, but it is viewed as “a long shot” because of the difficulty of three-way mergers, the lack of a leader, and the expensive problem of cashing out the company’s shareholders.

This is part of the dirty Dow Jones war.

FT?

No way!

If they are not able to fix their own circulation and advertising problems, how are they going to fix Dow Jones’?