Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. made an unsolicited bid to buy Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, for $60 per share, or about $5 billion. The news, first reported by CNBC, caused Dow Jones' stock to soar before being halted by the New York Stock Exchange. Shares jumped 58 percent, to $57.28. It resumed trading around at $55 per share.

Dow Jones confirmed the offer and said in a statement that it is evaluating it. The Bancroft family, which controls 62 percent of Dow Jones, has historically insisted the company isn't for sale. And late in the day on Tuesday, a representative of the Bancroft family said that a slight majority of the voting shares oppose the $60 per share offer. The board will factor this information into its evaluation.

In addition to the Journal, Dow Jones owns Barron's, Marketwatch, Factiva, and the Far Eastern Economic Review. It owns SmartMoney in a partnership with Hearst. News Corp. owns Fox News and the New York Post, among other media and entertainment properties.

Newspaper companies have been under pressure recently as competition on the internet has drained advertising sales for print versions. Most large papers have cut costs and placed more resources on their own websites in order to appease shareholders. On Monday, the Newspaper Association of America announced that circulation for the papers it tracks fell 2.1 percent in the first quarter.

Other newspaper publishers cheered the news on Tuesday. Shares of McClatchy, the Washington Post Co., the New York Times Co., and Gannett all jumped in afternoon trading. The board of the Tribune Company, which publishes the Los Angeles Times as well as the Chicago Tribune, recently agreed to be taken private with backing from billionaire investor Sam Zell.