Deals | GQ on 'vulgarian' Murdoch's takeover

In a new story with implications for The New York Times, GQ magazine -- better known as a men's fashion glossy -- aims its gun barrel at the two-year-old sale of The Wall Street Journal to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch. "It was a stunning turn of events whose significance is still coming into focus,'' the magazine says, as it recounts a litany of predictions about where the Australian "vulgarian" Murdoch would take the storied newspaper.

One one grim prediction coming true: Murdoch is taking steps to turn the Journal into the preeminent national daily, an attack on the market now claimed by the NYTCo.'s flagship, the Times.

The story continues: "The Murdoch takeover marks the beginning of the end of the newspaper world as we once knew it. In the two years since the Bancrofts sold out, nearly 200 newspapers in the United States have gone under. The Rocky Mountain News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Ann Arbor News are dead. The San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Philadelphia Inquirer, and entire Tribune chain are barely hanging on. Nearly 47,000 jobs have been lost. But under Murdoch, the Wall Street Journal is not only still publishing, but also, unbelievably, hiring."

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[Image: GQ]