As a member of the proposed committee to oversee Dow Jones & Co.’s editorial integrity in light of its presumed sale to News Corp., MIT Media Lab visionary and One Laptop Per Child organization founder Nicholas Negroponte has come under scrutiny for his close ties to Rupert Murdoch and his company.
Yesterday, Yankee Group founder Howard Anderson (an Xconomist), who is advising the OLPC, told the Boston Herald that “Rupert and Nicholas have had a strong, strong relationship for years.” The article also pointed out that News Corp. executive vice president Jeremy Philips is a member of the laptop project’s board.
Today’s Wall Street Journal made a bigger deal of the possible conflict, pointing out that News Corp. has donated at least $2 million to OLPC. According to the Journal, the merger document specified that committee members should be those “who, in the sole judgment of the Special Committee, are able to consider and evaluate objectively any issue that comes before the Special Committee and whose judgment is not impaired by any interest in or relationship with the company [News Corp.], Dow Jones, the Murdoch family, the Bancroft family or their respective affiliates.”
Both Dow Jones and News Corp. spokespeople defended Negroponte’s selection, expressing confidence that all members of the committee will make independent judgments, the Journal reported.
Like the Journal, we contacted Negroponte for comment, which he declined to give.
Author: Robert Buderi
Bob is Xconomy's founder and chairman. He is one of the country's foremost journalists covering business and technology. As a noted author and magazine editor, he is a sought-after commentator on innovation and global competitiveness. Before taking his most recent position as a research fellow in MIT's Center for International Studies, Bob served as Editor in Chief of MIT's Technology Review, then a 10-times-a-year publication with a circulation of 315,000. Bob led the magazine to numerous editorial and design awards and oversaw its expansion into three foreign editions, electronic newsletters, and highly successful conferences. As BusinessWeek's technology editor, he shared in the 1992 National Magazine Award for The Quality Imperative.
Bob is the author of four books about technology and innovation. Naval Innovation for the 21st Century (2013) is a post-Cold War account of the Office of Naval Research. Guanxi (2006) focuses on Microsoft's Beijing research lab as a metaphor for global competitiveness. Engines of Tomorrow (2000) describes the evolution of corporate research. The Invention That Changed the World (1996) covered a secret lab at MIT during WWII. Bob served on the Council on Competitiveness-sponsored National Innovation Initiative and is an advisor to the Draper Prize Nominating Committee. He has been a regular guest of CNBC's Strategy Session and has spoken about innovation at many venues, including the Business Council, Amazon, eBay, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.
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