• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, August 8, 2007

The Wall Street Journal will not alter its coverage of China in the wake of Rupert Murdoch's takeover, former managing editor Paul Steiger said at a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday. Steiger, now an editor-at-large for the paper, sought to reassure the paper's readers and its own editorial staff that reporting would not be stymied or adulterated due to Murdoch's influence, as many have publicly warned may happen.

Steiger said that "coverage of China is an extremely important priority for The Wall Street Journal. He added that because it's crucial to readers, "we intend to pursue it actively, and we don't expect there to be any change in that."

With the fastest-growing economy of any large country, China is of great interest to WSJ readers, many of whom work for companies that do business there or plan to in the near future.

China is a key market for U.S. products and also the main producer of a variety of consumer goods sold in the U.S. In 2006, U.S. exports to China totaled $55.2 billion, while imports from China topped $287.7 billion. Wal-Mart alone imported $27 billion of Chinese goods in 2006.

Finally, China is also the most important funder of U.S. government borrowing, owning more than $420 billion in U.S. Treasury securities.

These are some of the reasons that China is of great interest to Rupert Murdoch, whose dealings on the mainland have forced him into partnership--critics would say collaboration--with the Chinese government.

The Chinese audience is also a key target for StarTV, Murdoch's satellite TV broadcaster, which owns the world's most comprehensive collection of contemporary Chinese movies. Murdoch's News Corp. also owns an 18% stake in Phoenix TV, a joint venture based in Hong Kong that was supposed to be News Corp.'s entrée to the Chinese TV market.

Although Murdoch is reportedly frustrated by Chinese media controls and protectionist policies, his continuing business interests in China have fueled suspicion that he would adulterate content at his media companies to placate the Chinese government. In fact, StarTV has already bowed to political pressure on more than one occasion.

In 1994, for example, it yanked BBC World Service from its lineup after its coverage of the Chinese government grew too critical. And in 1998, HarperCollins, also owned by News Corp., canceled a book by the former governor of Hong Kong that was critical of the Chinese government.

This track record prompted The Wall Street Journal's Beijing bureau to write an open letter in May urging the Dow Jones board not to sell the company to Murdoch. It feared that would mean an end to investigative reporting in China, which has won two Pulitzer Prizes in recent years. The highly critical letter noted Murdoch's "well-documented history of making editorial decisions in order to advance his business interests in China and, indeed, of sacrificing journalistic integrity to satisfy personal or political aims."