It looks like Fox News is the first to have access to Gigot.
It has been the pattern for the White house and the Bush administration to favor it's most faithful television news /stenography network-- FOX News-- with key interviews. It looks like the Wall Street Journal will now be included in the "inside the echo chamber" family. Rove gives the story to the WSJ, boosting it's print sales, then the WSJ provides its editor to Fox News first.
Let's be clear. This is not in any way that I can see tainting or corrupting the actual information or writing of the news. But it does affect who gets it and when and it clearly affects the flow of the first access to breaking news. THis means it also affects which viewers will see the news first.
If I owned the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, I'd make sure that any hot news the Journal got would be funneled to my TV network. I'd make sure that inside info that could be discussed by Wall Street Journal staffers would be discussed with anchors on Fox, not CNN or MSNBC or any of the othe networks. That's just smart business and who can blame Murdoch.
Only time will tell if or how Murdoch will influence the WSJ's actual reporting, or witholding of news. But it's clear that already, the deal has influenced the flow of the news and WHICH networks will get news the WSJ gets its hands on first.
And once it is handed over to Fox news, where they get first crack at spinning it, then, while, technically, the Wall Street Journal may not have tainted the news, or its reporting, it's handing it to spinmasters at Fox, can very well alter the meaning or interpretation of the facts the WSJ reports.
Bottom line-- Murdoch's canny purchase of the Wall Street Journal is clearly another nail in the coffin of the general health of the state of news reporting as whole. It will further enable Murdoch to influence the processing of the news by the rest of the news media, particularly as real investigative reporting is starved by less and less funds, leading more and more networks and news sources to depending upon organizations like the Wall Street journal to actual PAY for investigative news journalists.
