Rupert Murdoch and the News

The Australian Rupert Murdoch, global press baron, plays hardball and big money with the news media on several continents. These days, he's up to his elbows in American media.

If you read The Wall Street Journal, which he now owns, you've seen the changes. Whether you watch or avoid Fox News, you know its impact. And those are just a start.

At a time when the news business is in turmoil, there's a hot debate over whether Rupert Murdoch's money is saving or wrecking American journalism.

This hour, On Point: Rupert Murdoch and the news media in America.Guests:

John Koblin, a reporter covering Rupert Murdoch for the New York Observer.

Robert McChesney, professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and author of "Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media" and "Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy."

Dean Starkman, a reporter at The Wall Street Journal from 1996 through 2004, he runs Columbia Journalism Review's blog "The Audit," where he has been closely tracking the changes at the Journal under Murdoch.

James T. Madore, reporter at Newsday covering the bids by Murdoch and others to buy the paper.