Selling the First Amendment...

It has been a regular debate in my mind the past month as to whether or not to renew my subscription to the Wall Street Journal.  I love the paper, but hardly get a chance to read it daily, and usually only skim what I can before someone calls my name and I'm off to save the world yet again.  Plus, with money being the necessity to feed and clothe my son (I still say kids should just be wrapped in towels until they get to school age) those things might take precedence over my reading tidbits of one of the last good news sources in the United States.

Now since reading and watching Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp's buyout of Dow Jones and, most importantly, its newspaper division.  While I am sure it was a tough decision for the Bancroft family that owns the majority of Dow Jones, I think it will be an even tougher decision for the millions of Journal readers whether or not to renew.  It is for me now, and I get a huge discount.

A big question about the Bancrofts is 'do they really need that much more money?'  It was already a profitable business, albeit not in the realm of billions upon billions, but quite securely profitable by any measure.  It is a bit of a sad testament that every person has their price, and with my family to provide for, my morals might be a little loosened as well.

Another is, did they sell out journalistic integrity?  The Wall Street Journal, arguably, is one of the last great maintays of American news reporting.  With its specific business and politics scope, people assume it does not really apply to them, but it touches everyone's lives, even my little one up here in the north.  Really, what part of an American's life isn't touched by either government actions or business plans?  Disney and Wal-Mart matter to us all.

But being an island of a business among the massive conglomerates of the world made the Journal special, and made it free.  Free to act and report as it sees fit, and really, its free enterprise has served it well.  Even when the world is turning away from print and even television media, Dow Jones is still turning a profit on its own.  It had to follow no other greater business plan beyond its very own.

That freedom is something it should not lose.  Having clean sources of news in the wireless world is a rare and valuable commodity.  And I will miss the Journal when it gets absorbed into whatever viewpoint sells.

Mark my words, my dear readers (both of you), that the Wall Street Journal will someday, most likely sooner than later, be tainted by Rupert Murdoch's grimy hands.  It will be slow and imperceptible at first, but in the coming years, it will be hard to find that which doesn't follow his views on each page.  Hopefully the terms that the Bancroft family insisted upon will at least keep it from looking like the crazy of Fox News.  I dread Bill O'Reilly or Ann Coulter printed in the Journal.  Those maniacs and their ilk need to be as far from authority and clout as oil and water.  That awful scenario might be more slick than one would think.  Since the opinions and editorials tend to have a more conservative tilt than the rest of the paper, that is where it would start slipping in.

Worst of all, I fear that this great newspaper will become another one of Mr Murdoch's whores.  What all his tabloid papers and cable channels really do is pander.  That's all giant conglomerates do.  Put out garbage that looks nice enough initially to buy into.  Some would argue that news and journalism work alongside all other forms of media and entertainment that it makes them just another choice.  But that is a rather dim view of the importance news and press have in maintaining a free society.

There is a very good reason that freedom of the press is in the very first of our Bill of Rights.  We citizens need a free press to help us keep an eye on the government (not necessarily be the 'fourth branch') so we may participate or even revolt if necessary.  If the press is not so different from watching videos on YouTube or voting for American Idol, then we do not even deserve our freedoms.

I still hold out a small hope that the Bancroft family will realize what they sold and renege on the deal.  I have a feeling that is why Mr Murdoch offered so much far and beyond the current stock value: so no one could buy it away.  I have hope, but then, I am a fool for hope.

Worst, though, I see Aldous Huxley and George Orwell in a great intellectual clash right now.  It is a battle in which there is no victor.