Dow Jones, Rupert Murdoch, And The Death of The WSJ
I’ve dreaded this takeover of Dow Jones including its flagship newspaper The Wall Street Journal. Back in early May, we wrote about the surprising $5 billion bid by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. to take over the Dow Jones. It seems that Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp. is all but ready to finalize the deal that would make Dow Jones a part of News Corp.
Yesterday, there were rumors, and even as recently, Keith Olbermann on Countdown still wasn’t sure if Rupert Murdoch would be able to pull it off:
But Rupert Murdoch is a shrewd business man, his strategy of divide and conquer against The Bancroft Family who had a majority share of Dow Jones, was seen a mile away. We could all see it happen before our very own eyes.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal itself,
a key Bancroft trust changed its mind and decided to accept News Corp.’s $60-a-share offer for the newspaper publisher.
The trust, overseen by a Denver law firm, holds 9.1% of Dow Jones’s voting shares and had been holding out for a higher offer from News Corp. But the media giant refused to raise its price, which was already a 67% premium to where Dow Jones stock was trading before news of the offer became public on May 1. News Corp. had signaled its intention to abandon the offer if the family didn’t support the offer. That put pressure on the Denver trust to back down.
On Monday, some family advisers and Dow Jones board members scrambled to line up enough votes to ensure the sale. A 5 p.m. deadline set by the family came and went amid apparent brinksmanship in both camps.
For Mr. Murdoch, the verdict represents the pinnacle of his long career building the News Corporation into a $28 billion global media empire that already includes more than 100 newspapers around the world, satellite broadcast operations, the Fox television network, the online social networking site MySpace and many other properties.
And as for me, with the proof in Fox News, I am skeptical, and very cautious. Am I seeing the death of my most beloved newspaper? (most beloved, aside from The Philippine Daily Inquirer of course) Or am I seeing the death of objectivity and real news in The Wall Street Journal? But in a sense, without objectivity and real news, would it still be The Wall Street Journal?
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If WSJ would just fall into the ‘bloody hands’ or Rupert Murdoch, I would rather have no WSJ at all. All he know is making money and pleasing governments so that he could get favorable deals and opportunities. No to MURDOCH TAKEOVER!!! SAVE WSJ!!!