Since Fox News host Glenn Beck said that President Obama is a “racist” who has a “deep-seated hatred for white people” his program has reportedly lost at least 80 advertisers purportedly costing the conservative network nearly $600,000 a week.

As a result, tuning into Beck's show these days you're more likely to see ads from companies that are more at home during a 3 a.m. rerun of Golden Girls than a 5 p.m. cable news broadcast. It's been out with name-brand companies like GEICO, AT&T, and Bank of America, and in with ads featuring convicted Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy's great deals for the savvy gold investor.

Now it is being reported that Rupert Murdoch -- CEO of News Corp., parent company of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal -- slashing ad rates for the Journal in his quest to directly compete with the New York Times.

As Roy Greenslade notes on his Guardian blog:

It is part of an aggressive attack on the New York Times, timed just ahead of the 26 April launch of the WSJ's special New York edition. Aggressive? He is virtually giving away space by reportedly offering discounts of between 79 and 83% for full-page ads.

Rightly, the FT points out that the strategy recalls the newspaper price wars Murdoch launched in 1993 by cutting the cover prices of The Times and The Sun.

Murdoch is the ultimate media warrior, prepared to risk any amount of money in order to succeed in a circulation battle against weaker rivals. (The NY Times company has nothing like the resources of Murdoch's News Corp).

News Corp evidently plans to spend $30m (£20m) in this and the next fiscal year to fund the expansion of the Journal's New York edition.

So, when should we expect to begin seeing Liddy's mustachioed mug in full-page Journal spreads?