Read All About It.(The Talk of the Town)(Rupert Murdoch)

When there's big news, the main story on the Wall Street Journal's front page usually starts with a short, ringing sentence, such as the one that appeared last Wednesday: "A century of Bancroft-family ownership at Dow Jones & Co. is over." On the left side of the page that day was another signature motif: an in-depth reconstruction of how Rupert Murdoch had triumphed in his four-month campaign to buy the company and the newspaper it owned--the Journal, one of the best papers in the world. The story was gang-tackled by six reporters and came furnished with the Journal's mandatory scenes of business titans with murky motives negotiating in restaurants. The writers referred to their own company's chief executive as Murdoch's "dance partner," and noted, on the front page, the possibility of a "big payday" for the boss following the sale.

In all, the Journal's coverage of the sale was a kind of prideful and impressive demonstration to Murdoch of the values, the talents, and the daring of the editors and reporters he will now have on his payroll. The subliminal question that the coverage seemed to ask was, Will Murdoch destroy the Journal? Will he undermine the paper's values and call that "investment"?

Many journalists, including some in the Journal's newsroom, assume that Murdoch's victory will lead eventually to the paper's diminishment. In a sense, Murdoch has said as much. He favors what he calls "popular journalism." He has mentioned that he finds long stories about complicated subjects to be rather trying. At his numerous other properties (which include the Post, the London Times, and the Fox network), he has no record of funding the relentless, risk-taking investigative reporting in which the Journal has specialized.

There can be little doubt that a Murdoch-owned Journal will be different, and that some of the changes will amount to loss. Murdoch has voiced skepticism, for example, about the Journal's peculiar front-page feature stories known as "A-heds." In this hyperlinked era of multimedia, the A-hed is an almost atavistic institution that relies upon wit and originality but offers no pressing connection to the news of the day. This was the headline stack on one classic:

Listening to Prozac:, 'Bow Wow! I Really, Love the Mailman!', Some Are Pushing the Drug, To Treat Pet Ailments;, Scientologists Are Yelping

It would not be entirely fair to blame Murdoch for the prospective vanishing of such compositions, though--and perhaps, since they sometimes concern drug-addled animals, he will change his view.

Nor can it be considered a surprise that Murdoch succeeded in his quest to buy the Journal. At seventy-six, he is apparently still juiced by the adrenaline that flows from empire creation. He prepared his bid skillfully; he offered a high price in cash for a troubled company; and he had no competitors. The newspapers that Murdoch publishes and the television networks that he operates may be coarse, lacking in public-minded ambition, and craven about their owner's political and business interests. None of this, however, disqualifies him from throwing money around as he pleases in a democratic marketplace.