The (other, London, Murdoch) Times tells us who’s
going to sit on the all-important committee charged with safeguarding the
editorial integrity of the WSJ. The first four are worthy enough; the fifth
member, however, is more surprising: Nicholas Negroponte, of
MIT Media Lab and One Laptop Per Child fame. I like the fact that he’s on the
committee, if only because his presence there shows a bit of imagination on
the part of Dow Jones. No one knows, of course, what the practical role of the
committee is going to be, although it can hardly help but exceed the expectations
of most observers, given that almost everybody expects Murdoch to ignore the
committee entirely. Maybe with the likes of Negroponte on board, Murdoch might
actually want to listen to its opinions.