Murdoch Welcomes, Scares 'WSJ' Staffers

Shortly after shareholders voted to approve Rupert Murdoch's $5 billion purchase of Dow Jones yesterday, the News Corp. chairman climbed atop a makeshift platform of printer-paper boxes in the Wall Street Journal newsroom to address the staff. He acknowledged their nervousness, told them he would "set a higher bar" than the previous owners, and admonished them to "make sure you're not scooped tomorrow."

This raises an obvious question: Paper boxes?

With all the companies this guy buys, you'd think he would own some sort of specialized dais -- hand-carved out of wooly mammoth ivory, maybe -- expressly for the purpose of addressing his newly-conquered legions. It's what Mr. Burns would do.

Murdoch sought to celebrate the occasion with a big ad buy, including a three-page spread in The New York Times (which, incidentally, he'd like to put out of business). But he ended up getting some of the publicity for free after the Financial Times rejected the ad, on the grounds that it considers itself, not the Journal, to be "the greatest brand in financial journalism."