What's News Corp. suffering from more in these dire financial times? Rupe's bad timing or misplaced priorities? An article in today's Times quotes a media analyst as saying "The thing I hear from investors is that they wish News Corp. was everything but newspapers." Except Rupe loves his papers! Maybe a little too much.

Certainly the News Corp. purchase of the Dow Jones just prior to start of the recession last year couldn't have come at a worse time, but the article also suggests Rupe's love of newspapers themselves may be hurting the company.

Mr. Murdoch has a well-earned reputation for making the deals that appeal to him personally, like the Dow Jones purchase, whether or not experts agree. The instinctual, from-the-gut aspect of Mr. Murdoch's business persona was once appreciated...but now seems to be a mark against him in Wall Street's eyes. * For years, Mr. Murdoch has stomached tens of millions of dollars in annual losses at The New York Post, in exchange for the power the paper afforded him. But given the economic times and the shift of his attention to The Journal, there is a sense of urgency in the News Corporation executive suite about stemming The Post's losses.