By William Powers, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, June 29, 2007

The most fascinating moment in this week's New York Times series about Rupert Murdoch was not one of the vivid examples of Murdoch's News Corp. doing whatever it had to do -- including greasing the palms of politicians of all ideological stripes, in the U.S., China, and elsewhere -- to serve its own bottom line. Those stories just confirmed what everyone has known for years about Murdoch's methods and values.

	Because a newspaper is a human institution, it can change completely overnight, depending on the skills and values of the people who own it and put it out every day.

No, the real keeper was News Corp.'s indignant charge, reported in Part Two, that The Times ran these stories in the service of its bottom line: "The agenda for this unprecedented series is so blatantly designed to further The Times's commercial self-interests -- by undermining a direct competitor poised to become an even more formidable competitor -- that it would be reckless of us to participate in their malicious assault."

Murdoch's people probably believe this with all their hearts, and why not? In his world, commercial self-interest is paramount. To those who spend their days in that world, it must be hard to imagine there is any other way to live.

In fact, if The Times, The Washington Post, and other major papers had really wanted to undermine The Wall Street Journal over the past few months, the best strategy would have been to sit by very quietly and let Murdoch buy Dow Jones, and hope that he runs it exactly as he runs his other properties.

If that happens -- and by the time you read this, the Murdoch-Dow Jones deal may already be inked -- The Times and the other quality broadsheets will be in a much better competitive position than they are today. The second that Murdoch owns The Wall Street Journal, the brand will lose the implicit integrity and credibility that made it desirable in the first place. Thus, from a purely commercial standpoint, the remaining top-drawer newsrooms should throw a party celebrating the deal.

But that party will never happen. The journalists who put out America's great newspapers are not driven primarily by commercial self-interest. If they were, they'd be working at hedge funds. The best newsrooms in America, including the Journal's, are run by people who believe in journalism itself, and its ability to illuminate, make sense of, and improve the world. It's a quaint notion, wildly out of step with the culture and, to more practical minds, bordering on the ridiculous. But it's this core belief, and the way it's reflected in the work every day, that make those newspapers desirable in the first place to people like Murdoch.

This is the paradox at the heart of the mogul's pursuit of Dow Jones, and in particular The Journal: He is trying to buy something he literally cannot have, at any price. It's impossible for Rupert Murdoch to own The Wall Street Journal because when his name is on the masthead, it will no longer be The Wall Street Journal, not really.

Great newspapers are not like other assets. Accountants and financial advisers cannot tote up their value. They are more like works of art. People pay a lot of money for van Goghs and Picassos, but unless they are speculators, they don't buy them for their monetary value. They buy them because they possess intrinsic qualities -- beauty, intelligence, subtlety, depth -- that are unique in all the world. Great paintings keep appreciating precisely because of this uniqueness, and so do great newspapers.

However, newspapers do differ from artworks in one way. The owner of a painting has no effect on the work itself, assuming it is properly cared for and protected from physical harm. But because a newspaper is a human institution, it can change completely overnight, depending on the skills and values of the people who own it and put it out every day. Murdoch's Wall Street Journal will be to today's Wall Street Journal as a poster of a great painting is to the painting itself -- an imitation, evocative of the original and perhaps even pleasant to have around. But not the real thing.

-- William Powers is a columnist for National Journal magazine, where "Off Message" appears. His e-mail address is bpowers@nationaljournal.com.

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