Rupert Murdoch -- an aged and male version of a pouting Veruca Salt -- didn't get his umpa lumpa. He lost the bidding war for Newsday [1] this week when Cablevision swooped in to plunk down more cash than Murdoch was willing to cede.

Anti-Murdochs are celebrating that News Corp’s talons couldn’t extend long enough to pluck up the paper. His giant corporation already owns the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, two New York television stations and dozens of small papers in New York. It certainly is a relief that Murdoch’s empire didn’t expand.

Newsday's new owner will be Cablevision [2], the fifth-largest cable provider in the country, which also owns Madison Square Garden, the NBA's New York Knicks and the NHL's New York Rangers. The company is based in Long Island, which is also Newsday's home turf.

Cablevision may just have begun to dabble in the newspaper business – Newsday will be its first – but we should still be worried about the emergence of a new media conglomerate.

We shouldn’t necessarily be celebrating when the same company who owns the local News 12 Network [3], a string of movie theaters [4], and several cable TV networks [5](AMC, IFC and We), suddenly gets a hold of one of the country’s biggest newspapers.

This scenario has the ill effects of consolidation – from lack of diversity in the newsroom to stale and streamlined coverage – written all over it.