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The way News Corp. monarch Rupert Murdoch manipulates his many newspapers is enough to make Charles Foster Kane blush. It's one reason integrity-laden Wall Street Journal reporters lobbied against his takeover bid. But now it seems the mockingly self-righteous crew is starting to revel in their deal with the Aussie devil.

In a typically overdetailed, needlessly insightful examination of Google's troubles with its social network Orkut, in Brazil — which we didn't actually read, due to its gleefully excessive length — the Journal's Antonio Regalado and Kevin Delaney had fun with a disclaimer:

News Corp. has agreed to acquire Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of The Wall Street Journal. In addition, News Corp. and Google have an agreement for Google to sell ads that appear on MySpace and share the ad revenue.

The disclaimer struck us a bit of a stretch. And now, a tipster tells us Regalado stuck it in as a prank — a prank that sailed its way past the copydesk. Says a New York media source:

He joked that the disclaimer graph about News Corp, Google and Dow Jones is a funny/sad sign of the times. He said he suggested it just to be annoying.

Antonio, when Murdoch puts you on the street, my boss wants you to look him up. But only if you can cut those Orkut stories down to 200 words.