Rupe's Troops Pile on Tough-Luck 'Times'

Rupert Murdoch, gearing up for a big battle between his newly-acquired Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, won't be disappointed with the way his newspapers covered yesterday's Times stock sell-off by Morgan Stanley.

"Thumbs down," declares the New York Post, with an illustration (see above) of Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger bandaged up and a suggestively-cropped chart seemingly showing share price hitting rock bottom at "the reeling Gray Lady." (In reality, the price fell 2.3 percent yesterday, to $18.48.)

The Journal's Sarah Ellison plays it straighter, noting, "The sale has...led some investors to question whether the Times can sustain itself as a public company or if it will be forced to explore alternative structures such as taking the company private."

But that question is all but answered in another Journal column supplied by Breakingviews.com. "Wearing [Morgan Stanley money manager Hassan] Elmasry down may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory," that column declares. "[A]t some point, the stock's slide may become too painful for the Sulzbergers to shrug off."