WSJ's Take On Rupert Murdoch
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A takeover bid involving one of the nation's leading newspapers and one of the world's best-known media moguls received wide coverage in the morning papers – including in the paper whose future is at issue.
The Wall Street Journal reports extensively Wednesday on Rupert Murdoch's "surprise" $5 billion bid for Dow Jones Co., which publishes the Journal, the nation's largest financial newspaper.
The Journal says Murdoch has long coveted the paper, pointing out that the "conservative slant" of its editorial page jibes with his own views, and that its business purview is "close to his heart."
The bid was widely seen as an attempt by Murdoch to build up his business news holdings ahead of the planned launch later this year of a financial news channel to compete with CNBC.
But the offer also sets up what the Washington Post calls "a media culture clash," seeking to pair "the pinstriped Journal, widely regarded as the paper of record for the U.S. economy" with Murdoch's News Corp., the home of "American Idol," MySpace.com, Fox News and the New York Post.
The $60-a-share offer – which The New York Times describes as "a startling 67 percent" above Dow Jones' market value – sent the company's stock soaring to its highest closing price in nearly five years.
Still, the Journal sees "obstacles" to the bid being accepted by the Bancroft family, which has controlled Dow Jones, one of the nation's last family-owned newspaper companies, for more than 100 years. And yesterday afternoon, Dow Jones issued a statement saying Bancroft family members with a majority stake in the company would oppose the transaction.
What's next? The Journal says the offer raises the possibility of other bidders joining the fray, "from media companies to financial buyers to Internet giants."
The Los Angeles Times reports that some of the names already being floated as potential bidders include Gannett, The New York Times Co., Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and General Electric, the parent company of CNBC.
Giuliani's Texas Ties
Texas has been good to New Yorker Rudy Giuliani. The Republican presidential contender has collected $2.2 million in the first quarter of 2007 in the Lone Star State, far more than any other candidate, according to The New York Times.
Giuliani's supporters include Texans who have given generously to President Bush, including former Enron president Richard D. Kinder, and top executives from the oil, gas and energy industry.
Much of Giuliani's fundraising success in Texas, the Times says, can be traced to the "well-established and politically connected" Houston law firm that bears his name: Bracewell & Giuliani.
But his ties to the law firm could also pose some political risks for Giuliani. The firm, the Times says, is "perhaps the nation's most aggressive lobbyist for coal-fired power plants, heavy emitters of air pollutants and carbon dioxide, a gas associated with global warming."
And environmentalists charge Bracewell & Giuliani played a key role in the Bush administration's decision to roll back major provisions of the Clean Air Act.
"They are probably the most influential voice on behalf of big-polluting industry in Washington, D.C.," Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, said.
While Giuliani has worked for several firms during his 38-year legal career, and survived questions about them in his New York mayoral campaigns, the Times says "his past firms did not have high-profile roles in shaping public policy on a contentious national issue."
The Giuliani campaign says he has not been involved in energy lobbying and does not take policy cues from his firm's clients.
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