Devoted to branding and building and protecting brands

I don't share the heartburn many people seem to be suffering with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation buying controlling interest in Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal.  As for all the squeeking and squawking civil libertarians who never miss a chance to knock Murdoch's political leanings, I would suggest they breathe deeply and slowly and try not to hyperventilate.  Better yet, sit down in front of the tube and enjoy all those Keith Olberman segments you've Tivo'd.  As for what Murdoch's equity stake means to the WSJ newsroom, I think News Corp. (Fox, etc.) and the Journal are about as symmetrical as the diagrams my geometry teacher used to draw.  Murdoch and his media empire amount to a fabulous brand that consistently delivers exactly what it promises.  Its ratings, especially for news, put the other nets to shame.  Of course, this constitutes major discomfort for those other networks.

As for Fox, it's not necessarily high-brow, but neither is much of America that's east of San Francisco and west of Boston.  What Murdoch and Fox News chief Roger Ailes suspected years ago  was that there was a massive, under-served audience of intelligent viewers who were up-to-here with Dan, Tom, Peter, and Wolfe and wanted a P.O.V. that was, well, more like what you read in the...Wall Street Journal.  See the connection?   Given Murdoch's rep for aggressiveness, you have wonder what took him so long.  BTW, re the suspicions of Murdoch and Ailes noted above, they were right.  Check the ratings.