Murdoch Bids for Wall Street Journal

"Mr. Murdoch has shown a willingness to crush quality and independence, and there is no reason to think he would handle Dow Jones or the Journal any differently," read a statement from Independent Association of Publishers' Employees.

Murdoch's politics could be a match with those of the editorial page of the Journal, which is known for its conservatism.

In 2003, before the Iraq war began, the New York Post, then run by Murdoch's son, Lachlan, ran a front-page picture of U.N. delegates preparing to hear new evidence of the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The paper labeled the French, who argued against the U.S. case for invasion, as "weasels" and altered the photo by replacing the heads of the French delegates with the heads of actual weasels.

The audacious News Corp. bid came two weeks ago in a letter to the Dow Jones board, the company said in a statement yesterday. Like The Washington Post Co. and the New York Times Co., Dow Jones has a dual-class ownership structure. This allows the Bancroft family, descendants of Clarence W. Barron, founder of the modern Journal, to control the company while holding a minority of the stock.

In addition to the Journal, Dow Jones owns Barron's financial weekly and the Dow Jones wire services. The combination would give Fox's new business TV channel unrivaled access to what many consider the best and most comprehensive financial coverage in the United States.

News Corp. has said it plans to launch the channel in the fourth quarter. The channel already is guaranteed to reach more than 30 million cable homes, has signed up top cable companies Comcast and Time Warner to carry the channel, and is hiring reporters and news anchors, according to sources close to the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the process is ongoing.

The Journal has "great journalists; it's got great management," Murdoch said. "But it's got rather a confined capital; it needs to be part of a bigger organization to be taken further."

Murdoch noted that "the great thing and the value of financial journalism and high-quality journalism is that you can charge for it," noting that the Journal charges for its online content.

The early Wall Street money is on Murdoch, despite the Bancrofts' initial resistance.

"We think the family is more likely than not to accept," wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Paul Ginocchio, who put Murdoch's chance of acquiring Dow Jones at 75 percent.

In the United States, News Corp. owns the Fox television network and several stations, including Washington's WTTG (Channel 5); the Fox News Channel; the 20th Century Fox movie studio; and book publisher HarperCollins. Worldwide, the company owns the British Sky Broadcasting satellite television network; several newspapers in Australia, Asia and Britain; magazines; and other television assets.

Despite its journalistic prestige, Dow Jones is tiny compared with News Corp. Murdoch's empire is valued at $70 billion, and the company reported more than $5 billion cash on hand at the end of 2006. Even with its stock surge yesterday, Dow Jones is valued at only $4.3 billion. Which means Murdoch could write a check for Dow Jones.

News Corp. stock fell $1.09 yesterday, to $22.99 a share.

The news of Murdoch's bid was broken by CNBC yesterday and confirmed shortly after by Dow Jones.