A quiz of sorts was sent to subscribers of the Wall Street Journal, assessing how much the News of the World hacking scandal in the UK has affected the image of the powerful News Corp. broadsheet over here in America. According to Jeremy Peters at the Times, the survey also asks whether readers think the Journal has improved since Rupert Murdoch bought it in 2008, and whether readers were even aware that Murdoch owns the paper in the first place. It goes on to question whether an executive like Murdoch should be held responsible “for all the actions of all its employees, no matter how large the corporation is.”
Most amusingly, the survey also checks in to see if subscribers to the Journal have “heard or seen anything in the news or elsewhere over the past few weeks about News Corp. or News of the World?” or even “seen or heard anything in the news or elsewhere recently about Rupert Murdoch?” These questions could be phrased more simply: “Are you even looking at the bundle of ink and tree pulp that we send to your door every morning?” (After a bit of foot-dragging, the Journal has been covering the scandal with alternating degrees of scrutiny, including publishing the first frustrating interview with Murdoch himself.)
This survey is worth filling out, by the way. Two random respondents could win an iPod Touch!
Gauging Impact of a Scandal [NYT]
Related: Murdoch Hacked Us, Too: Frank Rich on News Corp in America [NYM]
