Why is Rupert Murdoch buying the Brooklyn Paper, as the New York Observer reports today? Does Rupert Murdoch even know that he's buying the Brooklyn Paper?

The paper's editor, Gersh Kuntzman, confirmed the sale to the Observer, but doesn't mention a purchase price. He does allow that he and Rupert haven't had a chance to speak yet (one doesn't imagine Murdoch ringing poor Kuntzman every day to complain about coverage of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz).

So what's Murdoch's angle? News Corp. snapped up two Brooklyn newspaper chains, the TimesLedger and Courier-Life newspaper groups, back in 2006. At the time, the New York Times suggested that the purchases would help the local ad sales staff at News Corp's New York Post, allowing them to upsell ads from the local papers to the Post and to offer Post advertisers additional reach in the smaller papers.

Whatever the advantages the move may give the Post, it's tough to imagine it will get the tabloid anywhere closer to profitability. Instead, the decision to weigh down New Corp's balance sheet with yet another dying newspaper is best viewed through Murdoch's burning, irrational hatred of the New York Times and the Daily News, and if owning more Brooklyn papers will marginally help him pressure them by claiming a larger share of increasingly scarce local ad revenue, then own more Brooklyn papers he shall.