Within hours of the announcement of Nines takeover of Fairfax Media Iwont insult readers by calling it a merger Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was singing its praises.

Its been made possible by the changes in media ownership laws we made, he said blithely during an interview on Tasmanian radioon Thursday morning. To be frank, I welcome the announcement.

Of course he does. I mean, whats not to like if youre the head of a conservative government about to head into an election?

Suddenly, all those mastheads that for generations have made life hard for governments are going to be run by an entertainment company chaired by a former Liberal treasurer, Peter Costello.

This is a dream scenario for Mr Turnbull and his Communications Minister, Mitch Fifield, and it couldnt have happened without the changes they now trumpet.

But make no mistake: this deal is bad for journalism and bad for democracy.

It will almost certainly lead to more job losses in newsrooms and adversely affect the muscular journalism mastheadssuch as_The Age_ and The Sydney Morning Herald have practised for more than a century.

Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood should hang his head in shame at how he presented all this to his long-suffering workers

Mr Hywood sent a seven-paragraph email to staff that began by trying to spin the takeover as a merger despite conceding the new entity will be called Nine and ended with a desultory: I would like to thank everyone for their contribution.

It was hardly a fitting way for 150 years of journalistic tradition to be consigned to the scrap heap.

Were told Mr Hywood will stick around for six months before he drives off into the sunset in his Maserati, presumably with millions in bonuses and stock options stuffed into the boot.

Soon the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission was weighing in, saying it would spend 12 weeks assessing the bid to gauge if there might be any lessening of competition.

Twelve weeks? I can saveit a little time here.

Ifit looks at the just released Nielsen figures on traffic to the countrys top news websites,it will find that Nine is at No.2,The SMH atNo.4 and The Age at No.10. (The New Daily is at No.17, one behind The Australian.)

If this deal goes through, three of the Top Ten will be coming out of the same tent. Or maybe theyll all be rolled into one giant online entity. Either way, that would appear to lessen competition, wouldnt it?

Certainly it will reduce diversity. Not that that should surprise. As former PM Paul Keating said this afternoon: The absence of those legislative barriers, in the media free-for-all the Turnbull government is permitting, will, because of the broadly maintained power of those outlets, result in an effective and dramatic close down in diversity and, with it, opinion.

In the midst of all this I found myself thinking about the long-time titan of TV, Kerry Packer.

In the early90s he tried to put together a joint bid for FairfaxbyNine and Canadian publisher Conrad Black.

One of Mr Blacks lieutenants asked Mr Packer what his motivation was for wanting to own the venerable Australian newspaper company.

All I want out of this, Mr Packer told Mr Black and others at Londons Savoy Hotel, is to see certain peoples heads [at Fairfax] so deep in shit that the tops of their heads will only be visible through a powerful microscope.

Mission accomplished.

The Nine-Fairfax deal should be blocked because it reduces media diversity and threatens great and important newsrooms across the country and the quality journalism they practice.

But, as Mr Packer might have said, I wouldnt bet on it.

Bruce Guthrie is co-founder of The New Daily and a former editor of Fairfaxs The Age and The Sunday Age.

This article first appeared in New Daily