Major Dow Jones shareholder opposes News Corp. bid

[gravity]

Source: Reuters Business News

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Dow Jones & Co. Inc. executive Jim Ottaway Jr., whose family is one of the publisher's largest shareholders, said he opposes News Corp.'s $5 billion buyout bid, in part because it would cost The Wall Street Journal its editorial integrity.

Ottaway's statement, published on The Wall Street Journal's Web site on Sunday, said the sale to News Corp. and its chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, would damage Dow Jones' reputation for accurate, fair, objective and reliable business news reporting.

"Murdoch promises editorial independence and no interference in news judgments if he were owner of Dow Jones," Ottaway wrote. "He has made these easy promises of an eager buyer in the past, but not always kept them."

Ottaway's is the latest in a series of statements to come from Wall Street Journal reporters and the union that represents Dow Jones employees that opposes Murdoch's $60 per share offer for the company, which also publishes Barron's and the Marketwatch.com financial news Web site.

Read more: http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=OBR&Date=20070506&ID=6851343

[Donnachaidh]

1. YEAH!! Yeah Baby YEAH!

"because it would cost The Wall Street Journal its editorial integrity."

No shit sherlock!

:bounce: :bounce:

[Demeter]

2. This for WSJ Editorial Integrity!

:argh: :rofl: :spank: :nopity:

[gravity]

3. There is a huge difference between the editorials and news form the WSJ

One surprise is the Wall Street Journal, which we find as the most liberal of all 20 news outlets. We should first remind readers that this estimate (as well as all other newspaper estimates) refers only to the news of the Wall Street Journal; we omitted all data that came from its editorial page. If we included data from the editorial page, surely it would appear more conservative.

Second, some anecdotal evidence agrees with our result. For instance, Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid (2001) note that “The Journal has had a long-standing separation between its conservative editorial pages and its liberal news pages.” Paul Sperry, in an article titled the “Myth of the Conservative Wall Street Journal,” notes that the news division of the Journal sometimes calls the editorial division “Nazis.” “Fact is,” Sperry writes, “the Journal’s news and editorial departments are as politically polarized as North and South Korea.”

Source: http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/groseclose/Media.Bias.8.htm#_ftnref24

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

6. What is "liberal" news?

:shrug:

[rcdean]

4. The WSJ is arguably the best newspaper in the world. The journalists are pissed.

The reporters are struggling for a way to be heard.

I'm being asked for advise by my contact there about whether the journalists en masse should petition the Bancroft family.

Wouldn't do any good in my view. This is going to happen eventually. It's human nature.

The WSJ enjoys an exceptional level of journalistic integrity. It has a steel wall that keeps the journalists independent of the looney bin crowd in the editorial section.

Sooner or later members of the Bancrofts who are younger and less appreciative of this separation will cave to Ruppert -- probably after he puts another half billion on the table.

But I do hope the journalistic community there stays close knit--maybe through a special web forum--and resists like crazy the inevitable efforts of Murdoch to pierce the veil.

One good thing is that Ruppert isn't getting any younger. His two sons don't necessarily share his views. Plus, Ruppert is in awe of the WSJ. It's a prize he's been after all his life. He is less likely to meddle in with it than most of his toys -- at least in the short term. (And, in the long term, as Keynes noted, "we are all dead.")

[rosesaylavee]

5. Someone who makes business sense

as well as moral sense! Double whammy against News Corps.

K & R