Newsday eyed by Murdoch

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said yesterday that acquiring Long Island’s Newsday from Tribune Co. would help his New York Post compete for advertising.

But Mr. Murdoch said that U.S. antitrust officials might block the acquisition. Tribune reportedly wants at least $500 million for the newspaper.

After an address to Georgetown University students, Mr. Murdoch said he regretted the disappearance of competitive newspapers in America.

Last year, News Corp. acquired Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal. He said he viewed the acquisition as a unique opportunity to create an alternative national newspaper, noting that “we’ve hardly started working on it.”

Mr. Murdoch said in response to a question that everything News Corp. had done was to create competition and give consumers more choice.

In response to a question from a Chinese college student, Mr. Murdoch said that while News Corp. has always walked a fine line in China, he believed the government would open up.

“Things change from time to time and I believe that things are going to change and open up in China,” he said. Mr. Murdoch thinks China’s emerging middle class will be a driving force for change, giving opportunity to worldwide companies.

Mr. Murdoch said that both American and English media did not portray an accurate image of him. “We have always been a catalyst for change so we inspire fear in the status quo,” Mr. Murdoch said. Responding to assertions that News Corp. held a right-leaning reputation, Mr. Murdoch said his New York Post supported Democratic presidential candidate Barrack Obama in the primaries although “I don’t know what we’ll do in the general election.”

Mr. Murdoch defended MySpace, his social networking giant, stating that the majority of people active on the site are over the age of 30. He said he watched rival Facebook very closely.

“We take Facebook seriously and have a lot of respect for what Facebook has done,” he said. “It’s not a head-on fight. … I think a lot of people are on both [networks].”

Mr. Murdoch said that most newspapers are “cutting back and deteriorating,” though he believed newspapers were the greatest training ground possible for media-oriented youth.