Son of a diplomat, a long-time journalist, a teacher, Charles Kaiser is, by any measure, well-connected.
And all of these connections made him the right person for a sitdown interview with Andrew Rosenthal, editor of the editor page of the New York Times editorial page.
Proving it can cover its own corporate owners with energy, the Wall Street Journal yesterday gave a full account of the latest bumbling and stumbling of the Bancroft family.
Sunday was a good day for devoted readers of the “Weddings/Celebrations” pages of the New York Times.
There were stories, some brief, some longer, of 41 unions, the coming together of a whole lot of lawyers, some doctors, and at least one freelance hiking and music columnist.
Analysis of the reports indicates that a trend identified in the mid-90s by David Brooks (before he became a Times columnist) is alive and well.
Bad times for newspapers can be good times for newspaper lobbyists.
Major publishers, which often cover K Street as a hotbed of corruption, spend thousands each year to advance and protect their own interests.
Yet one issue that has fueled the Washington media lobby for years may soon disappear. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin has drafted a plan that would abolish rules forbidding companies from owning both a newspaper and broadcast outlets in the same city.
In June, we pondered whether Dean Singleton was going soft. His suit against Par Ridder sought to remove Ridder as publisher of the rival Star Tribune for only a year.
We argued that someone who stole confidential information, as Ridder admitted, should never be allowed in a publisher’s chair again. Ridder was publisher of the Pioneer Press in St. Paul before jumping to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
CEO Rupert Murdoch earned a salary of $8.1 million in News Corp.’s most recent fiscal year and total compensation of about
$25 million, according to the company’s proxy statement issued Thursday. That total jumps to $32 million if you count the “theoretical” increase in the value of his pension.
But perhaps the most interesting item in the document is shareholder proposal No. 4, expected to be introduced at News Corp.’s annual meeting next month.
Stephen Mayne of Templestowe, Austrailia, holder of 150 “B” shares, wants the company to create a single class of stock, possibly giving holders of “A” shares full voting rights. The move, the proposal estimates, would reduce the Murdoch family’s holdings from 39 percent of voting stock to less than 15 percent.
One director resigned Thursday because of the board’s decision to
approve a $5 billion buyout offer from Rupert Murdoch’sNews Corp. A second director is under investigation by the SEC because of insider
trading allegations related to that buyout offer.
The board of directors of Dow Jones said late Tuesday night that itw as “prepared to approve” a buyout offer from Rupert Murdoch, which would give the conservative press baron control of The Wall Street Journal.
Fine, but the real news is that Al Gore says Murdoch is a man of his word who supports independent voices, according to The New York Times.
It’s not often that the Times buries a lead, but this is one of them. The newspaper acknowledged that Gore’s support is an “unlikely endorsement,” but put it at the very end of its main Murdoch-Dow Jones story, posted to its Web site late Tuesday night.
None of Burkle’s previous media flirtations has led to anything and some analysts don’t give him much of a chance with Dow Jones. Some members of the company’s controlling Bancroft family, though, are desperately seeking an alternative to a takeover by Rupert Murdoch. Burkle is a Democrat with strong ties to the Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Starting with one newspaper in Australia, he has built and acquired a vast network of newspapers, broadcast companies and web sites.
Murdoch has shown increasing sophistication in getting his way regardless of the political climate. News Corp. employs a battery of lobbyists, including the very connected Anthony Podesta.
To the surprise of some, Murdoch’s sizeable political donations in the U.S. favor Republicans only slightly. The Times reports that Republicans received 56 percent of the $4.76 million contributed since 1997 by the Murdoch family and related PACs.
As dynasties go, it was short-lived. Just 68 years elapsed from the time Robert Worth Bingham bought the Louisville Courier-Journal and Times for $1.5 million in 1918 until the newspapers and other family holdings were sold for $448 million in 1986.
In what was a generally good Election Day nationwide for Republicans and conservatives, Democrats prevailed in a special election in New York’s sprawling 23rd Congressional District.
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