Steve Bailey, columnist for The Boston Globe, has launched yet another hit job on Rupert Murdoch in today's paper. OK, fine, free country: Bailey and the Globe don't like Murdoch and the News Corp.,and they especially don't like the idea of Murdoch buying The Wall Street Journal. But Bailey should be more honest with his readers about his own conflict of interest concerning the conflict of New York-based media companies.
So, as part of his hit job, Bailey refers to Murdoch as "the devil." Nice, Steve.
But nowhere in Bailey's piece is there any honest acknowledgement of the obvious: That Bailey, as an employee of the Globe, which is, in turn, owned by The New York Times. And the Times, of course, has been engaged in a brutal smear campaign against Murdoch. Bailey mentions that the Times owns the Globe, but only for the purpose of praising the Times for being so enlightened and virtuous. And no mention whatsoever, by Bailey, of the Times' campaign against Murdoch, as detailed on this blog--a nasty campaign which, of course, Bailey is now a mudslinging part of.
In other words, Bailey has engaged in some double-dip brown-nosing. He praises the Times for its wonderfulness, while helping do the Times' dirty work against Murdoch. Maybe Bailey thinks what he thinks on his own--that his bosses, the Sulzbergers, are great, while his bosses' enemy, Murdoch is satanic--but that putative coincidence of opinion doesn't eliminate Bailey's duty to acknowledge it.
Surely, Bailey deserves a bonus from his ultimate paymaster, Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. But he owes his readers an apology, for not shooting straight, full disclosure-wise.
Parenthetically, one might note that just two months ago, the Main Stream Media viewed the WSJ as a right-wing newspaper. But now that Murdoch seems poised to own it, they are rediscovering the joys of independence, and the great legacy of the Bancroft family. Here's a prediction: If Murdoch does, in fact, end up with the WSJ, Bailey and the MSM will trash the Bancrofts for selling the paper, and then return to Journal-bashing.
