The following articles by Jay Klopfenstein is from The Christian News, Dec. 20, 1993, p. 20 --

Zondervan Corp., once a respected Christian publishing firm, Grand Rapids, Michigan, became a public company via a big initial public stock offering some 15 years ago. This was about the same time the NIV Bible was published by an outfit in New York called the International Bible Society, which financed the project. They then gave Zondervan Corp. the exclusive rights to the publication of the NIV version of the Bible.

After the initial offering, the stock's price rose moderately but later the price fell sharply and many investors lost money. In 1985, a New Jersey investor filed a lawsuit which said he was induced to buy Zondervan stock because of false statements the company made to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In 1989 it was widely reported in the press: "Zondervan Corp. of Grand Rapids, Michigan, reached a $3.57 million out-of-court settlement with investors who contend they lost money when irregularities were found in the religious publisher's financial records."

By 1988, Zondervan, suffering from declining sales, was in financial trouble as a result of expanding too fast in the early 1980's. In July 1985, the Wall Street Journal reported, "In 1978, the company introduced the New International Version of the Bible, which is the market leader in Bible sales--in the past two years several investors have bought and sold stakes in Zondervan, sparking speculation that the company had found a buyer. In May an investor group had made a $10.50 a share offer, but the two sides couldn't reach an agreement."

Then, aggressive media magnate Rupert Murdoch bought Zondervan for $56.7 million or $13.50 per share. Zondervan's stock jumped $4.25 per share on the announcement. Murdoch, an international world citizen who started in Australia, was building a media empire via his company, News Corp. The following month, the tycoon Murdoch gobbled up the nation's largest circulation magazine, TV Guide, also Seventeen, and Good Food magazines plus the Daily Racing Form on a $3 billion cash binge which was the second largest media deal ever. The seller was Walter Annenberg, 80-year-old Jewish publishing partriarch, who privately owned Triangle Publications whose lucrative national magazine distribution business takes not only their magazines to newsstands but also many others including Reader's Digest."

In recent years Murdoch has built a media empire worldwide with revenues over $10 billion (64 percent in U.S.A., 19 percent in United Kingdom and 17 percent in Australia and the Pacific Basin). Holdings include Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., Fox Broadcasting Co., Fox Television Stations, Inc., Harper-Collins, TV Guide, and FSI (multi-page free standing inserts each week in 390 local Sunday newspapers). Also owned in the United Kingdom are The Times, The Sunday Times, Today, Sun and News of the World. These account for one-third of all national newspapers sold in the U.K. market with the latter two having the largest daily and Sunday circulations respectively in the English-speaking world. Also 50 percent owned is British Sky Broadcasting Ltd., the leading U.K. direct-to-home satellite television broadcasting service. News Corp. is also the largest newspaper publisher in Australia.

This year expansion into Asia commenced with purchase of 66 percent interest in Star Television, the Hong Kong satellite TV company that broadcasts to 38 nations, mostly in the Middle and Far East. Also purchased were Chinese newspapers. Recently News Corp. signed six cable channels that will carry News Corp's programming beginning around mid-1994, enabling the company to reach 25 percent of all U.S. households.

In October 1992, News Corp. sold $850 million notes and bonds plus $313 million common stock (over $1 billion total) with $25.5 million in underwriting fees to the offering syndicate headed by Merril Lynch, including Allen and Co., Citicorp Securities, Donaldson, Lufkin, and J.P. Morgan Securities.

A News Corp.'s division active in the United States is Harper-Collins engaged in the educational texts markets via its Scott, Foresman School Division which publishes educational programs for school grades kindergarten through twelve, and the Harper-Collins College Division which publishes in most major disciplines in the college curriculum from the introductory level through graduate courses. The subsidiary directed at the Christian evangelical market is Zondervan Corp., holder of the valuable exclusive rights to the NIV-Bible. In the U.K., Harper-Collins' religious division publishes the Good News Bible, hymnals, and liturgical works. News Corp., American Depository Receipts (ADR's), listed on the New York Stock Exchange, symbol NWS, had a low this year of $36 per share, a high of $63 and is currently trading around $52. The Co. has long-term debt of $7 billion (about 63 percent of capital) and is ranked by Value Line as "below average" for safety....

News Corp's owner and sales promoter of the NIV Bible, is one of the major producers of modern movies, television programs, and magazines. Occasionally some productions are clean and worthy of family viewing,. but not many! News Corp and other major studios circulate movies full of profanity. TV screens are full of disgusting trash and violence. A U.S. Senator said, "The crudeness, cursing, profanity, vice and violence we tolerate today on our TV screens will be the crudeness, cursing, profanity, vice, and violence that we will be forced to endure in our real life in the years ahead."

According to Morality in Media, "By the time the average child graduates from elementary school, he will have seen at least 8,000 murders and more than 100,000 other acts of violence on TV," and, "A typical teenager watching TV sees nearly 14,000 sexual encounters in one year."

When Rupert Murdoch bought Seventeen magazine, it was predicted it would become a perfect sister to his Elle, the hip and glossy fashion magazine published in France. Now Seventeen magazine is described as "flashy, racy, titillating, hip, jazzy, flirty, glamourous and sexy." It is probably the most widely read magazine by teenagers and pre-teens in the U.S.A. with a circulation of 1.9 million. If pastors and church leaders, who contribute to Murdoch and his News Corp. by promoting and selling the NIV Bible, would pick up the current December 1993 issue at their local magazine store, they would see 138 pages from cover to back of articles and ads, slick and sexually suggestive. These pages exude weird hair-do's, witchcraft-type attire and punk-rock sub-cultural sexually suggestive abnormalities.

Occasionally a pastor's church bulletin contains an insert from American Family Association, which lists the horrible immoralities on TV with advice to boycott the advertisers. On this same Sunday, the pastor sermonizes about the evils of rock culture, pornography and sodomy; then he urges his parishioners to buy the NIV Bible. What folly! How absurd!

(Jay Klopfenstein, The Christian News, Dec. 20, 1993, p. 20).