It looks like Rupert Murdoch has really been digging his paws into the Wall Street Journal. The once respected mag lost credibility amoung its primary viewership when it, in conjunction with the GOP, started to ostercize conservatives over illegal immigration. Some of the editorial staff wrote low brow hit pieces that always seemed to be timed, in lock step almost, with specific immigration related events. Quite sad when this once credible rag was hailed as a genuine source of information. Stock tickers aside, it has simply become yet another propaganda platform for furthering corporate agendas.

If one were to take a step back you can see this reshaping in a broader sense and get a small taste of its direction. Bill O'Reilly is a good example. Unless you have the mind of an Austrolopithicine, it is easy to see the decline in his program, not just for qualities sake, but on range of issues covered, guests, topics and general approaches to "journalism." He was the perfect type of personality to be easily bought and spearhead this new tabloid direction. Sure, it is fair to say that Fox News had never been known for the high brow approach, but with September 11th they were thrust by default into the limelight. And without conscience effort became the voice of millions who had had enough from the MSM. It is best to see this little blurb of theirs in prominence-ville as a condition of circumstance. Akin to a white trash stripper winning a small lottery of $100,000 and being on top of the world for a year until she blows all of her cash. This is what Fox News was with credibility. We can mark Bill O'Reilly's support of the McCain amnesty (he supported it as the best possible solution BEFORE it was even released) as a decent overt sign of decline. But this has really been the shaping of Fox News as a whole over the past few years.

We can't really, even with all of its inherent subtleties and slow pace, ignore this re-tooling. In a world filled with passive agressive deception, mega rich zealots with an eye for balkanization and too much power and morally absent politicians driven by greed, you have to take a careful look at any change thru their eyes. Why would a channel like fox, or a respected paper living on the top of the ratings pile, with a monopoly on being the voice for its constituency just decide to change course and re-invent things? Of course it isn't some sort of blunder, the idea is to change the presentation of media, to participate in the obstruction of a real flow of data and to take posession of it for the gratification of affecting power centers in our society and even globally.

But what of the Wall Street Journal? Well it is now going to take on the breaking news format. And you can bet, with '08 coming up it will fall in line with the reconquista mantra of global corpratists and their marketing agenda. Just wait for this summer, the Wall Street Journal will be shatting out propaganda that would make the Soviets blush (not that it hasn't thru its editorials, but now it will be its institutional practice).

Here is an article talking about the upcoming change:
NYT Article

Here is an excerpt:
...Mr. Murdoch has said that he wants to broaden The Journal’s appeal with more general-interest news. Now, the front page has shorter articles and more breaking and nonbusiness news, and particularly favors politics. ...
You can make what you want of this, but I see it as the making of yet another balkanizing propaganda monster.