Verizon buys Vodafone's Wireless Stake

In an article that made front page news for both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, I find myself asking, "Why?"

The WSJ article, "Verizon Seals $130 Billion Deal for Vodafone's Stake in U.S. Wireless Venture" blatantly states that there will "likely be a negligible impact on Verizon's 100 million subscribers and involve little if any scrutiny from antitrust regulators." So why is this news? I understand this article appearing in a news source called "Wall Street" because this will have an impact on those invested in both Verizon and Vodafone, but not the common subscriber to either company. The WSJ article makes me wonder why anyone would care about this reporting if they are outside of the circle of those directly involved in the investment. There doesn't seem to be any evidence of impact on the common citizen, so why is it front page news?

And, far be it for me to sound ignorant, but I know very little about stocks, bonds, and investments. Granted, those who read WSJ may be more educated on these topics than the "average" person. Their article is filled so much with numbers and references to how the money will be distributed, that my eyes glazed over. I thought, "Why does this matter to me?"

I also take issue with the sources WSJ utilizes. When discussing AT&T's interest in acquiring Vodaphone, the site "according to people who have heard the presentations." Not only is this a very vague outline of a source (who are they, how many people were there, and why can't we know their name?), but it shows that WSJ may not have been in attendance themselves. Is this original reporting, or was the information in the article given to them from another source? Was it all verified information? The phrase 'some investors' is used often as well--to whom are they referencing? The author seems to assume that anyone reading this article has a general blanket understanding of Verizon's inner workings. I went back through the article and counted how many stated, original sources that WSJ reported and I found one. Mr. McAdams of Verizon. All of the information seems to have come from reporting outside of this article, and maybe even WSJ.

It isn't until reading the NYT article on the same topic that I began to understand the issue more, as well as the significance to the "average" reader. The NYT journalist breaks down the meaning of the deal, instead of the numbers. By discussing what mobile phone giants have done in the past to cement their positions internationally, I finally understood that this is the start of the European mobile market going the way of the USA market--we have five giant companies as opposed to hundreds of small ones. Europeans will probably start to see longer contracts and higher prices.

While still not very relevant to me, I can see the relevance to those overseas. I still don't understand why the editor believed this to be front page news, which may be a fault in the reporting. And, unfortunately, while NYT has a different original source, I once again only counted the one quote that could be attributed to someone other than a vague group of people.

This is also one of the biggest differences in journalism that I've seen between WSJ and NYT. It makes sense to me that WSJ would give more financial information, which this particular company markets more. The NYT has a broader reading market to cater to, so they may work more to make these issues readable for the average joe.