Of course Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger (pictured here) is jealous of Rupert Murdoch. Why shouldn't Pinch be jealous? After all, Murdoch inherited precisely one Australian newspaper, back in the 50s, from his father--and turned that single paper into a $70-billion empire. Meanwhile, Pinch inherited the mighty New York Times, plus a bunch of other papers, and TV stations, and has done--what? He has turned a major publishing/broadcasting combine into a shrinking operation--with more shrinkage still ahead. So of course Pinch is angry.
And so of course no fewer than four Times reporters, spit out nearly 4000 words of attempted venom, on orders from the Sulzberger family.
All of which will do nothing to hurt Murdoch, but will serve to prove--as if proof were needed--just how determined the Times is to derail the News Corp.-Dow Jones deal. And how willing Pinch is to order Times reporters into a hit job. (Isn't the Times a publicly traded company? Don't the shareholders have an interest in seeing that Times assets go to advance the company's profitability, as opposed to merely slaking Pinch's personal jealousy, plus maybe a little ideological hostility?
So whenever anyone talks about how Murdoch might allegedly fiddle with the editorial independence of the Journal, ask 'em to explain, first, the demonstrated eagerness of Pinch to use his paper as a hammer against another newspaper and another newspaperman.
And as for the article itself, it's a big yawn. Old news, recycled yet again, about various Murdoch dealings with the FCC and the like. Nothing here that will likely dissuade the Bancroft family to go through with the sale of the Journal.
