As controversial media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his company, News Corporation, made clear their intentions to buy the Dow Jones Company (in the area of $5.5 billion), and namely its chief asset The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper industry has been buzzing as to the implications of such a monumental sale.

Murdoch’s desire for the Wall Street Journal, one of America’s most venerable print institutions as well as one of its few remaining family owned publications is well documented. It’s an interesting question for the journalism world, especially in such uncertain times. What will happen to the Journal under the stewardship of a man among whose prize commercial possessions include the New York Post and the not so venerable Fox News Channel? A member of the Dow Jones board has already resigned in protest to the sale, fearing for the Journal’s journalistic standards.

The New York Times, cross-town rival in prestige and circulation, though not necessarily in content and style, has done the most extensive and encompassing reporting regarding the sale, so much so that News Corporation took exception to its coverage. The two-part expose (1), (2) looking at the history of media holdings once under the stewardship of Murdoch are worth reading, though they are lengthy.

The question as to whether Murdoch will assume control of the paper is moot. The Bancroft family, who made the decision to sell, could no longer adequately forecast and navigate such uncertain times in print journalism, and the bottom line is what effectively forced their hand to sell to such an unsuitable buyer. And despite Murdoch’s claims to keep his hands off the content side of the paper, let’s be serious. He’s made similar assurances in the past that have proven ridiculous, and come on; you don’t spend $5.5 billion dollars unless you want to put your personality on your new purchase.

As to what fueled Murdoch’s affinity for the Journal, there are some easy conclusions to draw. He’s hoping to start a Fox Business Channel to be the preeminent source of financial news on cable television, and having the unquestioned authority for daily business news in your back pocket will go a long way to realizing those ambitions. Also, the Journal’s editorial page has a considerable conservative lean, even hosting its own program on Fox News, something that surely weighed heavily on Murdoch’s thinking. Finally, and what is perhaps the farthest stretch, Murdoch might see this as his only possibility to run a print publication with the prestige and relevance of, say, a New York Times, and he may well be relishing the opportunity to go head to head with one of his biggest critics.

I’ve recently been reading British journalist and Middle East expert Robert Fisk’s (he’s somewhat of a UK version of Seymour Hersh) memoir entitled The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East. In an interesting passage when Fisk was reporting on the U.S. warship, The Vincennes, mistakenly shoot down an Iranian passenger jet in May of 1987, which killed almost 300 civilians, including women and children. Fisk was working for the Times of London, which was recently purchased by Murdoch. Portions of his reporting was edited from the printed version, portions which hinted at negligence on the part of the U.S. On page 279, Fisk wrote,

“Journalist should not be prima donnas. We have to fight to prove the worth of our work. Neither editors nor readers are there for the greater good of journalists. But something very unethical had taken place here: my report on the shooting down of the Iranian Airbus had been, in every sense of the word, tampered with, changed and censored. It’s meaning had been distorted by omission. The Americans, in my truncated report, had been exonerated as surely as they had been excused by Mrs. Thatcher. This, I felt sure, was a result of Murdoch’s ownership of The Times. I did not believe that he personally became involved in individual newspaper stories-though this would happen-but rather that his ownership spread a culture of obedience and compliance throughout the paper, a feeling hat Murdoch’s views-what Murdoch wanted-were ‘known’.