Les Echoes and Wall Street Journal
Two Leading Financial Journals Pending Corporate Absorption
Rupert Murdoch's bid to buy the WSJ and Bernard Arnault's bid to buy Les Echoes adds to the growing concern of the media's conflict of interests and diminishing voices.
The Wall Street Journal in the US and Les Echoes in France have bids to be bought by large corporate giants. If these two newspapers follow the fate of their sister papers, the trend of corporate growth and power will continue to snow ball in a web of corporate monopolies. The impact of accepting these bids will affect the integrity of the content of these papers and reflect political agendas of these business typhoons.
Conflict of Interest
Bernard Arnault, the richest man in France has a $365 million dollar bid on Les Echoes, France's largest financial newspaper. Pardoxically, Bernard is the owner of the world's largest luxury goods producer, LVMH, and the paper reports regularly on his company. In addition, Bernard is close friends with newly elected President Sarkozy. Bernard was Sarkozy's best man in his wedding eleven years ago.
The deal would not be Sarkozy's only media ally. He has several close friends that own a big part of the French media.
A list of Sarkozy's media friends
- Martin Bouygues, Sarkozy's sons godfather, controls the biggest French television channel, TF1
- Arnaud Lagardere, an aerospace chairman and owner of multiple media properties, close friend to Sarkozy
- Serge Dassault, owner of the Le Figaro newspaper, a senator from the president's right-wing party.
French journalist fear Les Echoes will become a censored paper whose reports will serve the interest of the owner and his friends.
Susan Sachs reports on an online article published July 26, 2007 in The Christian Science Monitor entitled "Sarkozy's tight circle of media friends" that censorship has occurred in another of Bernard's papers, La Tribune. The paper held information from an opinion poll favouring Sarkozy's opponent in the presidential race that was later published in the back of the paper after protest from staff the following day.
The coalition of six French journalist unions in Sachs article are quoted:
"Rarely in the course of the last decades has the media risked becoming so much the instrument of a single mind-set, and yet the same time so scorned by people in power."
Wall Street Journal to be News "Corporated"
Rupert Murdoch's tempting bid to buy the WSJ at $60 a share has kept the Bancroft family owners in a business check as a decision to sell is still pending. While the company's worth only $43 a share, Mr. Murdoch's bid is still a difficult decision for the owner's due to staff protest. The staff have reason to fear Murdoch's imminent domination since his other media outlets show evidence of his censorship and biased reporting.
- In 1993 he removed the BBC World's News from his television service in north Asia because it displeased the Chinese government
- The lack of coverage regarding the controversy surrounding this bid for the WSJ in his current media outlets.
- His American based Fox 5 news consistent one-sided spins for the conservative party.
Freedom not fear in the press should be the tune of any democratic society. It is the song that is created when multiple voices are heard. However, if these two financial papers join the fates of their predecessors then the only tune they will be singing is Queen's "Another one Bites the Dust."
