What the 'WSJ''s publisher has to say

Here's a link to a letter sent out at about 11 p.m. tonight from the publisher of The Wall Street Journal about the completion of the News Corp. deal. It's almost anti-climatic after these last few months, but now that it's done, it's hard not to wonder if this is in some sense a blueprint for the newspaper business at least in the (troubled) near-term. Despite the industry's current difficulties, newspapers--certain ones anyway--are incredibly prestigious properties to own, and there are certainly enough billionaires in the world to buy up the ones that matter. Whether those properties make money, when hidden inside vast conglomerates, is irrelevant, and thus the newspaper can continue on, in just the fashion that Rupert Murdoch has hung onto The New York Post all these years. It may not be a perfect solution, particularly if those new owners become meddlesome. But given the alternatives ...