Word: overreach
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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Ever since he started the Hearstian buying spree that made his News Corp. the world's most diverse media company, rivals have been waiting for Rupert Murdoch to overreach and fall. They mocked his ambition to become the first press lord to bestride three continents: Europe, North America and his native Australia, where his holdings account for 60% of total daily-newspaper circulation. They belittled his free-spending plunge into book publishing. They scoffed when he spent more than $2 billion for seven U.S. TV stations, plus a movie studio to provide programs, for his high-risk start...
...this case, though, have less to do with legal hairsplitting than with basic sentiments about the value of free expression and the press. A belief in the virtue of an unshackled and vigorous press means recognizing that the leeway demanded by free debate will sometimes allow writers to overreach their knowledge, or even to trample the truth. However, if one believes that uninhibited speech is dangerous or that the press too frequently serves up sensationalistic trash, one takes the opposite view...