WSJ.com will remain a paid service, Murdoch says

In an article that has disappointed me greatly, the New York Times has reported that Rupert Murdoch, billionaire owner of the media conglomerate known as the News Corporation has decided to renege on his original claim to allow free web access to the Wall Street Journal website. Murdoch and his News Corp. completed the buyout of Dow Jones in December, 2007. Dow Jones is the parent company of the Wall Street Journal, Market Watch, Barron's Magazine, and Dow Jones Newswires.

Murdoch began his attempt to buy out Dow Jones around May of 2007, amidst much controversy, with the media making great claims to the potential of turning the Wall Street Journal into a tabloid, like much of Murdoch's oversees papers, or of turning it into a pro-republican news source much like Fox News.

After making many promises to the Bancroft family, long time majority shareholders of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, Murdoch was able to secure the deal and completed it in the fourth quarter. One of his first promises was to allow open access to the Wall Street Journal online, at no charge, but last week he came to the decision that the $99 per year subscription fee could not be beaten by sheer ad dollars on a free website. That being the case, those of us who want to read WSJ articles online without forking over the fee will still need to access WSJ.com via our mobile phones, which is a free service thus far.

Murdoch began his media conglomerate as the son of an Australian newspaper owner. When he took over the family business, he quickly began buying out competitors as well as papers in other markets. To this day, the News Corporation is one of the largest news sources in the world. News Corp. is also the parent company of MySpace, PhotoBucket, Beliefnet, IGN Entertainment, DirecTV and Britain's BskyB (British Sky Broadcasting) Satellite Television Service and has recently launched the Fox Business Network on cable and satellite to compete with CNBC. Fox Business has one upper hand on CNBC, its core business news competitor, which is its now close relationship to the WSJ and to Dow Jones, allowing the free movement of business news content to and from the Wall Street Journal. In an attempt to compete, the New York Times has recently reached an agreement with CNBC (January 7, 2008) to share content freely between both entities.

Though Murdoch has made stern promises to keep his hands clear of the editorial processes at the Wall Street Journal, some sources are still skeptical, though I think it will take time to really see the effects of Murdoch's influence on the WSJ, if there are any.