A friend of mine and reader sent this to me based on his own experience with News Corp. Reprinted with permission.

I am a former News Corp empplyee, working in IT in Australia between 2000 and 2003 in digital and print content management; news print and web publishing, advertising systems, archives, ecommerce, multimedia etc. I worked heavily with the production systems I am referring too below. Especially the global news paper production system, which is used at Wapping (News International) but is also the shared platform for most of the 140+ news papers in News Corp.

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The UK newspapers are one small set of a single, global newspaper production system which has included the New York Post for many years and now the WSJ.
140 newspapers share a single production system where all news is shared. So a crime in one newspaper is a crime for all.  read more »

I was first introduced to the Brooklyn Paper by a political friend who told me that it was the place local insiders went to find out what was up politically in Brooklyn. When Rupert Murdoch bought the Brooklyn Paper, I was horrified. Everything that Murdoch touches goes down hill, its accuracy suffering because of his extremist political ideology.

Well the Brooklyn Paper HAS gone downhill, but not quite as fast as I had predicted. But I have already noticed a Foxification of its style which I predict will continue.

I think a clear indication that the Brooklyn Paper will become just another lousy, biased rag in Murdoch's portfolio is the fact that starting Friday the Brooklyn Paper will now be included inside the already extremist, inaccurate and biased New York Post. The Brooklyn Paper is now going to symbolically be embraced by one of the worst papers in the world. Sadly, I once relied on the Brooklyn Paper to give me some insider perspective on local politics. Now, though it still occasionally fulfills its old function, it is clearly not to be trusted and it is very unlikely that I will be citing any Brooklyn Paper rags without first confirming from other, more reliable sources.

Isn't this special.

Australian Immigrant Rupert Murdoch owns Times of London, the British publication that first published about Obama's 'Auntie Zeituni'.

Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News, that "fair and balanced as long as it's talking about extreme right-wing politics" network.  read more »

Rupert Murdoch is trying to buy Down Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Now, the WSJ is pretty right wing biased to start with, but they have their own independence that would be sadly lost if Murdoch has his way, becoming another cheap rag mouthpiece of right wing extremists.

But what is interesting is there seems to be a sign that the deal is already done.

For several days now, I have seen that the WSJ in Park Slope, Brooklyn, have been delivered in bags marked "New York Post." At first I thought nothing of it, but it has been consistent for a few days at least and it is highly unusual. You don't expect New York Post to be wrapped in a bag saying "New York Times" or visa versa. Is this some kind of Murdoch pissing on the territory he wants to add to his empire of lying, ranting rags? I would love to know just how one paper winds up being delivered in a wrapper marked with the name of another paper.  read more »