Overlooking Ground Zero in the heart of New York's financial
district, Dow Jones's head office was buzzing with chatter and
speculation yesterday about life under the company's imminent new
owner. Rupert Murdoch's US$5.6-billion takeover of The Wall
Street Journal's publisher prompted a mixture of resignation
and angst, with frustration that so many members of the Bancroft
family had accepted News Corporation's money.
The liberal pressure group MoveOn.org handed out spoof editions
of the Journal bearing genuine headlines from News Corporation's
Fox News network. Lead stories asked: "Is the liberal media helping
to fuel terror?" and "All-out civil war in Iraq: Could it be a good
thing?"
MoveOn's Adam Green said: "We want to put Rupert Murdoch on
notice that if he turns the Journal into the same unreliable,
partisan media outlet that Fox is, people will no longer trust the
newspaper."
Outside the Dow Jones building, views were mixed. Mark Wauben,
art director of Dow Jones's Barron's business magazine, said: "I'm
upbeat about it myself. We'll probably have a lot more resources --
we'll be part of a conglomerate as opposed to a corporation."
But a graphic designer with on the Journal predicted some of his
colleagues would be contacting headhunters to find new jobs: "Not
many people in the newsroom are happy. Rupert Murdoch blurs the
line between what is truth and what is entertainment."
The agreement brought to an end three months of wrangling
involving the Journal's controlling Bancroft family. Murdoch's
audacious bid also prompted debates around the world about the
prospects of editorial independence surviving at the paper.
Parallels were drawn with The Times and The Sunday
Times, which many observers say have faced editorial meddling
by Murdoch since he bought the papers in 1981 despite an
independent editorial board.
One of his pledges to the Bancrofts was to create a similar
structure for Dow Jones. Yesterday, News Corp announced the
inaugural five members of Dow Jones's "special committee",
including the retired Associated Press chief executive Louis
Boccardi.
The media conglomerate also confirmed it will appoint a member
of the Bancroft family or another mutually acceptable person to the
News Corp board of directors once the deal goes through -- which is
expected to be by the end of the year.
The Bancrofts have pledged 37 percent of Dow Jones's stock to
News Corp, securing Murdoch a majority and ending more than a
century of stewardship of the group. The sale brings a total
windfall of more than US$1 billion to the descendants of Clarence
Barron, who bought joint control of Dow Jones in 1902.
The offer of US$60 a share was viewed by many as too high to
refuse but a number of family members opposed the deal. A
spokesperson for the Bancrofts described deliberations as "long,
complex and arduous" and said their votes followed "much
soul-searching, hard work and analysis". The family had spent a
week considering the offer after the board recommended it to
shareholders.
Newspaper heir Dieter von Holtzbrinck stepped down from the
board in protest. On Tuesday, another board and Bancroft family
member, Leslie Hill, also quit. She said the financial benefits
failed to outweigh "the loss of an independent global news
organization with unmatched credibility and integrity".
Her relative Elisabeth Goth Chelberg did not agree. "On the one
hand it is quite sad, but on the other it was the only reasonable
thing to do," she told the Journal. "Now I look forward to a better
Dow Jones. It's going to have more money and a world presence and
all of the things that it could have and should have had but
didn't."
Murdoch said he was "deeply gratified" at the level of support
from the Bancroft family and its trustees. "The Wall Street Journal
and the other Dow Jones operations will be even more formidable
competitors as we profitably extend their invaluable information
across our print, broadcast and digital platforms around the
world."
Murdoch can be expected to invest in editorial content. John
Morton, a media analyst, said Dow Jones had been scaling back the
Journal's European and Asian editions - a decision likely to be
reversed by Murdoch.
Any changes in editorial direction should be subtle. "It'll be a
question of what the Journal doesn't cover, rather than what it
does," Morton said. "I suspect the Journal has won the last
Pulitzer prize it's going to get for coverage of China."
?
Will editorial integrity be protected?
Against a backdrop of bleak predictions of editorial meddling
from Murdoch, one the media mogul's key pledges to the Journal's
staff and its controlling Bancroft family was to create a special
committee on editorial independence and integrity. The committee -
whose members will be independent of the News Corporation, Dow
Jones, the Murdoch family and the Bancroft family - must approve
the hiring and firing of editors. Its first five members
predominantly come from media backgrounds. They are retired chief
executive of the AP newswire, Louis Boccardi; Nicholas Negroponte,
founder of One Laptop Per Child initiative to provide computers for
children in developing countries; Pulitzer prize-winner Jack
Fuller, a former president of Tribune Publishing, who was once
editor of the Chicago Tribune; former Washington State
Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn and former Detroit News editorial page
editor Thomas Bray, who is also a writer for Dow Jones's
OpinionJournal.com. Bray will reportedly chair the committee.
The creation of the committee provoked mixed responses. In her
resignation letter to Dow Jones's board this week, Bancroft family
member Leslie Hill wrote: "I do not believe that a special
committee could ever be a match for true independence."
(China Daily via The Guardian August 3, 2007)
