An Irish Rupert Murdoch

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Editorial / Periscope - Niall O'Dowd

An Irish Rupert Murdoch

July 26, 2007

By NiallO’Dowd

JOHN J. Kiernan was the Rupert Murdoch of his day, but a lot more likeable and principled. In a week when The Wall Street Journal will likely fall into the hands of the “Dirty Digger,” who has done more than any one person to lower media standards, the story of Kiernan bears retelling. And there’s another reason. The Wall Street Journal is essentially an offshoot of a publication that Kiernan created in the 1860s in New York. Two employees of his company were men called Charles Henry Dow and William David Jones. He gave both men their start in the financial news business.

Kiernan was the son of Irish immigrants, and at age 12 became a messenger boy for the Magnetic Telegraph Company based on Wall Street.

In 1868 he started his own financial news gathering operation. Kiernan rowed out to ships entering New York Harbor that were newly arrived from London and other points across the globe. He scavenged old newspapers from foreign parts that were on board, and got the latest information from the crew on what was happening all over the globe.

The information he gathered was invaluable, the Internet of its day. Kiernan distilled the information into news items and then sent his financial data sheet to subscribers who paid a rich premium to be first with the news.

Then as now information was king, and late breaking information, especially from foreign wars, was especially invaluable. Bell Telephone would not be created until 1877, and Kiernan’s service reigned supreme for several decades.

He got rich and successful with his new venture. His office, known as Kiernan’s Corner, was at Wall and Broad Street where the New York Stock Exchange is located today. The financial world waited daily for his breaking news.

Kiernan did more with his wealth than just accumulate, however. He was a passionate believer in Irish nationalism.

In 1880 he introduced Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the struggle for Irish home rule, to the financial titans on Wall Street with a plea for “subscriptions” to improve the dreadful conditions that Ireland’s tenant farmers lived in after the Famine and the widespread clearances.

Kiernan decided to enter politics, in part because of his desire to see the Ireland question have a higher importance in America. He served two terms as a state senator and authored two bills to improve New York Harbor and its ferry service. His political commitments, however, meant he was spending far less time on the day job.

His two employees, Dow and Jones, seized their opportunity. In 1882 they left Kiernan and started their own financial news sheet using the same tactics that Kiernan had used to get their information.

In 1889 it became The Wall Street Journal, and the Dow Jones index became the single biggest predictor of financial fortunes in the world even down to the present day.

Kiernan lost out to the brash newcomers who had stolen and improved on his idea, and he died a broken man at just 48 years of age of pneumonia.

Without him, however, there would never have been a Wall Street Journal, as he taught Dow and Jones everything they knew and subsequently used against him.

On the deaths of Dow and Jones the paper eventually passed to the Bancroft family who hold it to this very day. Murdoch has been wooing the family with a bid to assume ownership, and the Bancrofts are meeting this week to decide on the offer.

It seems pretty definite Murdoch will end up owning the Journal, and no doubt putting his unique stamp of right wing hysterics on it. No doubt John J. Kiernan might have something to say about that were he still alive.

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