Rupert's Day Goes to Evelyn Y

Of all the coverage of News Corp's pursuit of Dow Jones over the past few months, very little of it was even slightly funny. In fact, most of it was remarkably sullen.

But Rich Turner's WSJ piece posted just after Thursday morning's Dow Jones annual meeting nearly made up for it.

Virtually anyone who has worked much with public companies over the past few decades has come across septuagenarian gadfly Evelyn Y. Davis. Ms. Davis, whose biography notes is a "four-time Divorcee with NO children," and who has erected her own headstone in advance, pulled one her usual star turns at what she claimed was here 44th Dow Jones annual meeting. Turner made you wish you were there, showing nice craft by employing one of the best tricks of good writers -- he got out of the way of the story, and let it tell itself.

Consider:

After saying she was voting her 230 shares in favor of the deal, she pronounced it a "sad day" and praised the Bancroft family as "distinguished." She also gave News Corp. high marks for its choice of Natalie Bancroft, an opera singer living in Europe, to serve on its board, due to an editorial independence agreement designed partly to placate the family. "She will surprise people," she said. "She will be very good ... of course, she may have to take some business classes," she said -- and then scolded the "men in the audience" for the ensuing laughter.

Or this:

Then she turned to Richard Zannino, outgoing Dow Jones chief executive officer. Mr. Zannino, who participated in the process which resulted in the News Corp. acquisition, previously had indicated that he might stay with Dow Jones after the merger. He had also said he enjoyed running a media company and might want to do so again. Ms. Davis urged him to pursue instead another option, suggesting he run Neiman-Marcus whose CEO, she said, is "very advanced" in age. "Rich, you are going to go back to retailing," said Ms. Davis. "You are very good at retailing."

Or even better, this:

She then pointed out her designer outfit and asked him to identify its provenance.

Mr. Zannino played along. "It looks like Valentino to me." Ms. Davis shrieked with joy and the audience applauded.

Now, back to the handwringing about imminent death of the A-hed...

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