February 11, 2009 4:28 PM
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Murdoch, Journal To Set Up Editorial Board
As part of the deal package that cemented Rupert Murdoch's longstanding effort to acquire Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co., the two sides agreed to create an editorial board that would act as a buffer between the media mogul and the newspaper, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
The board, which will appoint new members when existing ones leave, will help determine who serves as the paper's top editors, the Post reported.
The initial board members, according to the report, will be former AP head Louis Boccardi; columnist Thomas Bray; former Republican House member Jennifer Dunn; former Tribune Co. president Jack Fuller; and Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT's Media Lab.
Word spread late Tuesday that Murdoch had succeeded in his bid to buy the 125-year-old purveyor of financial wisdom, despite critics who have doubted whether Murdoch — king of the tabloid format, the mind behind Fox News, and owner of properties including The Times of London, Twentieth Century Fox and MySpace — is the right steward for Dow's flagship property, the Wall Street Journal.
The $5 billion deal, which still requires shareholder approval, got the nod Tuesday from the boards of both Dow Jones and Murdoch's News Corp., which waited until early Wednesday to make an official announcement.
The companies said a member of the Bancroft family or another mutually acceptable person would be appointed to News Corp.'s board of directors as part of the agreement.
The Bancroft family, descended over several generations from an early owner of Dow Jones, Clarence Barron, clashed long and hard over whether to sell to Murdoch, with several members saying they feared the quality and independence of the paper would suffer under his watch.
In a statement released early Wednesday morning, a family spokesman said: "It is our most fervent hope that in the years to come, The Wall Street Journal will continue to enjoy, and deserve, the universal admiration and respect in which it is held all over the world."
The Bancroft family initially rebuffed Murdoch in early May, but then agreed to reconsider. Last week, family members heard exhaustive presentations on Murdoch's plans but remained divided.
Wrangling continued past a Monday deadline for them to signal their intentions; the break came Tuesday when a holdout trust agreed to support the deal — apparently after Dow Jones agreed to pay the family's advisers' fees, the Journal reported.
For Murdoch, it was a long, hard courtship, but he ultimately got the Bancroft family — which holds a controlling interest in Dow Jones — to line up 37 percent of the company's overall voting stock in favor of the takeover by the 76-year-old media tycoon.
Not everyone was won over. As the Journal reported the deal on its Web site, it also delivered the news that one member of the Bancroft family, Leslie Hill, is resigning the Dow Jones board in protest of the sale.
Murdoch will be landing one of the great trophies of U.S. journalism and a newspaper that is considered required daily reading among the business and power elite.
The planned sale comes as newspapers across the country face a deepening crisis of slumping revenues as readers flock to the Internet for information and entertainment, and advertising dollars chase them there.
Murdoch had long been interested in owning Dow Jones, but it was widely assumed that the Bancroft family wouldn't sell. In the end, his price of $60 per share — 65 percent over the level of Dow Jones' shares before his offer became public — proved too rich to turn down.
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The board, which will appoint new members when existing ones leave, will help determine who serves as the paper's top editors, the Post reported.
The initial board members, according to the report, will be former AP head Louis Boccardi; columnist Thomas Bray; former Republican House member Jennifer Dunn; former Tribune Co. president Jack Fuller; and Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT's Media Lab.
Word spread late Tuesday that Murdoch had succeeded in his bid to buy the 125-year-old purveyor of financial wisdom, despite critics who have doubted whether Murdoch — king of the tabloid format, the mind behind Fox News, and owner of properties including The Times of London, Twentieth Century Fox and MySpace — is the right steward for Dow's flagship property, the Wall Street Journal.
The $5 billion deal, which still requires shareholder approval, got the nod Tuesday from the boards of both Dow Jones and Murdoch's News Corp., which waited until early Wednesday to make an official announcement.
The companies said a member of the Bancroft family or another mutually acceptable person would be appointed to News Corp.'s board of directors as part of the agreement.
The Bancroft family, descended over several generations from an early owner of Dow Jones, Clarence Barron, clashed long and hard over whether to sell to Murdoch, with several members saying they feared the quality and independence of the paper would suffer under his watch.
In a statement released early Wednesday morning, a family spokesman said: "It is our most fervent hope that in the years to come, The Wall Street Journal will continue to enjoy, and deserve, the universal admiration and respect in which it is held all over the world."
The Bancroft family initially rebuffed Murdoch in early May, but then agreed to reconsider. Last week, family members heard exhaustive presentations on Murdoch's plans but remained divided.
Wrangling continued past a Monday deadline for them to signal their intentions; the break came Tuesday when a holdout trust agreed to support the deal — apparently after Dow Jones agreed to pay the family's advisers' fees, the Journal reported.
For Murdoch, it was a long, hard courtship, but he ultimately got the Bancroft family — which holds a controlling interest in Dow Jones — to line up 37 percent of the company's overall voting stock in favor of the takeover by the 76-year-old media tycoon.
Not everyone was won over. As the Journal reported the deal on its Web site, it also delivered the news that one member of the Bancroft family, Leslie Hill, is resigning the Dow Jones board in protest of the sale.
Murdoch will be landing one of the great trophies of U.S. journalism and a newspaper that is considered required daily reading among the business and power elite.
The planned sale comes as newspapers across the country face a deepening crisis of slumping revenues as readers flock to the Internet for information and entertainment, and advertising dollars chase them there.
Murdoch had long been interested in owning Dow Jones, but it was widely assumed that the Bancroft family wouldn't sell. In the end, his price of $60 per share — 65 percent over the level of Dow Jones' shares before his offer became public — proved too rich to turn down.
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