No Firm Evidence on How Murdoch Would Run Journal

Murdoch's News Corp. is worth $70 billion and is bigger than Disney but smaller than Time Warner. In the United States, News Corp. includes the Fox television network and Fox News Channel, the New York Post, the Twentieth Century Fox movie studio, FX cable channel, HarperCollins book publishers, pieces of the DirecTV satellite service and the National Geographic Channel, and MySpace. Overseas, Murdoch has newspapers, magazines and satellite services in England, Italy, Australia and Asia.

Newspaper owners come from a grand tradition of using their presses to further their political or business aims. In past centuries, power -- and an uninterrupted flow of profits -- were the main reasons to own a newspaper. In the late 19th century, when the U.S. government was but a small fraction of its modern-day size and influence, New York publishers such as William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer essentially had their own foreign policies.

Throughout much of the 20th century, however, major U.S. newspapers attempted to limit advocacy to the editorial pages. Editorial independence from owners and publishers has come to be high religion in newsrooms.

The British and Australian style of tabloid journalism, with which Murdoch is so closely associated, tends toward the popular and sensational -- and politically aligned. Even though the Australian-born Murdoch became a U.S. citizen in 1985 (to comply with U.S. rules prohibiting foreign ownership of television stations), his brash style of journalism is as alien as his accent to many U.S. journalists.

Murdoch is politically connected in the nations where he does business and is adept at staying close to those in power, regardless of party and ideology. For example, he has supported the Australian prime minister, John Howard, but recently told Australian television that Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd, a possible successor to Howard, would make a good prime minister.

Some Murdoch watchers regard such maneuvering as good business. Others see something darker. "The essence of Murdoch is that he does government propaganda on a privatized basis," said Bruce Page, author of "The Murdoch Archipelago," which argues that Murdoch's newspapers cozy up to political power to help his businesses, and are unlikely to criticize sitting governments.

"This rubbish might sell books, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny," News Corp. spokesman Andrew Butcher wrote in an e-mail yesterday. "Our papers around the world are fierce critics of governments when appropriate."

In 1994, Murdoch removed the BBC from his Star satellite television broadcasts to China. The BCC had aired reports critical of the Chinese government. At the time, Murdoch told writer William Shawcross that he cut the BBC to appease Beijing. But in a Financial Times interview last month, Murdoch said he did it to save money.

"The BBC was taken off Star because it cost too much and attracted dismal ratings, and to enable the development of Star's first local pay TV programming," Butcher wrote. "It is also true that the BBC was deliberately antagonistic to the Chinese government and Mr. Murdoch acknowledged years ago that this was potentially damaging to our business, but that is not why the BBC was removed."

Seth Faison, a crisis communications executive with Sitrick and Co., was a reporter for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong from 1988 to 1991, when Murdoch owned it. Faison said Murdoch improved the paper by spending money on it and hiring good journalists. Faison said he and his colleagues never received direction on coverage from Murdoch or from editors relaying Murdoch's orders.

However, the Morning Post's managing director Clarence Chang, while trying to make a business deal with the government, once told the bureau's reporters that if they toned down their criticism of Beijing, "it's good for me, it's good for you and it's good for Rupert," according to Faison.

"It was clear to us that business came first and journalism came second," Faison said in an interview yesterday.