Media Dow Jonesin’: Rupert Murdoch reports big loss on ‘Wall Street Journal’-related writedown
by Ward Harkavy
The pot’s calling the kettle black: The New York Times runs a Reuters story this afternoon about Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp. posting an $8.4 billion writedown on the advertising-challenged Wall Street Journal and other properties.
The Times, as we know, is in even worse shape and has even reached out to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.
Nevertheless, the snooty paper of record neglected to mention its own troubles — while it saw fit to mention the woes of other media corpses:
News Corporation is the latest media conglomerate to report gloomy financial results as advertisers slash their budgets in the weak economy.
This week, Time Warner posted a $16 billion quarterly net loss because of a write-down, and the Walt Disney Company posted a sharply lower-than-expected profit in part because of poor TV ad and DVD sales.
The bad news for the Wall Street Journal — the best piece of Murdoch property other than The Simpsons — is that it’s apparently dragging down the whole thing.
Meanwhile, if you want to learn more about the Times‘s own troubles, read this story from Murdoch’s Post:
I told you last month that newspapers needed a bailout. But George W. Bush, whose presence on the scene provided mucho grist for the mill, has fled to Texas, and all he left us was this lousy meltdown.