News Corp. and slick advertising

I don't like Rupert Murdoch and do not read any News Corporation publications, nor do I subscribe to Sky, but credit where credit is due: the company has a very slick piece of advertising today to celebrate its acquisition of The Wall Street Journal.

In the newspaper I take, The Daily Telegraph, the adverisement covered two and a half full pages - I expect it was the same in other national newspaper across the UK and probably world-wide in major markets. Two of the pages were a timeline of the progress (and astounding it is, for sure) of Murdoch from his rescue of the Adelaide News (one of his daddy's newspapers) in his native Australia in 1954 to the purchase of The Wall Street Journal this year. What particularly struck me was the entry for 1981:

"Time is runnin' out." We save The Times from closure. Today it's Britain's most respected nespaper.

I just bet The Daily Telegraph loved printing that last sentence! On the other hand, I suppose they may just have said to themselves that as it was paid advertising and not illegal they were prepared to take Murdoch's money and print any old rubbish. I rushed to check the Telegraph's editorial page and was reassured to see that they haven't echoed the 'paid for' claim there.