Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Dow Jones, Murdoch Reach a Deal

This is not good news as more of our media is put in the hands of the owner of Fox News.
Executives from Dow Jones have agreed to the major terms of a deal to sell the company to News Corp., a move that would give Rupert Murdoch long-sought control of the Wall Street Journal, the nation's preeminent financial newspaper, according to a source familiar with the talks.

The Dow Jones board will meet as early as this afternoon to formally consider Murdoch's unsolicited $5 billion bid, made in April, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are ongoing.
The consolidation of our media into just a few hands is dangerous for our Democracy and must be resisted. The fourth estate, as the media is often called, should be neutral. Is there anyone that thinks the common good is being served by our current media?

What they will do next is try to bring the last bastion of media freedom, the internet under the control of these same firms. This must be resisted at all costs. One of the major reasons that the American public is so uninformed on the issues of the day is the sad state of our media.

One only has to look at the run up to the Iraq War to understand how our media has let us down. Instead of being a place that would examine all aspects of the proposed war they simply reported what was being sold by the Bush administration. That has led us to where we are today. This latest power grab by News Corp is very troubling. We must go back to the time when media ownership was limited. Without that you can kiss this democracy goodbye.

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