Minority owners of Dow Jones & Co. have put News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch on the defensive in his effort to buy the company that publishes the Wall Street Journal from the Bancroft family for $5 billion.

Two members of the Ottaway family, which is a minority partner in Dow Jones, have excoriated Murdoch personally and warned that News Corp.'s takeover of the company would ruin the Journal.

In a pair of statements published in the Journal, James Ottaway Jr., a former Dow Jones executive and board member, said Murdoch “has for a long time expressed his personal, political and business biases through his newspapers and television channels.”

Ottaway added that Murdoch's New York Post  "regularly runs biased news stories and headlines supporting [Murdoch's] friends, political candidates, and public policies, and attacks people he personally opposes." Fox News, which is also owned by Murdoch's News Corp., has, according to Ottaway, abandoned objectivity and fairness for a bullying approach where "one man’s political opinions have become the editorial and news policy."

Ottaway also accused Murdoch of putting his business interests ahead of good journalism, citing in particular News Corp.'s decision to censor its Star TV satellite broadcasting service in China to avoid offending the government there.

"When Rupert Murdoch's business and news interests conflict, his business interests usually prevail," Ottaway wrote.

The New York Times reports that Murdoch wants the Journal to bolster a cable business channel he intends to start this year. He has criticized the leading cable business channel, CNBC, for being too eager to report on scandals. He said his channel would take a more positive view of business.

One of Ottaway's sons, James W. Ottaway, blasted that idea. “As an investor, I would be very concerned to live in an era of making investment decisions based on the Murdoch-filtered business information,” he said. “As a citizen, I would be afraid to live in a world where news is solely entertainment, and there is an agenda behind every story I read, watch, or hear.”

The Wall Street Journal also notes that the senior Ottaway is a director of Human Rights in China, an organization that promotes democratic reforms and social justice.

Ottaway and his three children own or control about 6.2 percent of Dow Jones' Class B supervoting shares. Adding in their common stock, their holdings translate into 5.2 percent of overall voting power, the Journal says.

So far, a bloc of Bancroft family members holding 52 percent of this voting power has declared its opposition. When combined with the Ottaways, that means at least 57 percent of Dow Jones stock are against a News Corp. takeover.

Murdoch's New York Post buried the Ottaways' opposition in its Business Briefs column.

The short item says that News Corp. rejects the Ottaways' critical assessments as based on "misconceptions and clichés."