Can't Blame Murdoch for Seizing on Media Shift

Murdoch has always had a deep instinct for pandering. He saw in cable television the potential for showmanship, and exploited it. He saw in network television an appetite for the unconventional, and exploited that. With papers like the New York Post, he saw that the future of newspapers lay in its past -- in the roughhousing, take-no-prisoners spirit of The Front Page -- and modernized the tabloid.

So it makes sense that Murdoch would take to the Internet, where the aggregate of consumers is voting for the rules. And it makes sense he wants to take Dow Jones -- its news service, its financial-news site and its flagship paper, the Journal -- toss it into the media salad that is News Corp., and see what happens.

And the upholstered journalists? No one can say for sure what kind of media will work best several years on. All we can see is what isn't working now. Business journalists have written for years about disruptive technologies. Now, finally, we know what it really means.