The Wall Street Journal's owners may be split over whether to sell their company to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. The newspaper's readers are not.

Comments attached to Journal articles about the Murdoch's $5 billion offer for Dow Jones & Co. have been running overwhelmingly -- and often vituperatively -- against the sale.

"I grieve for the Journal because it will never be the same," read one entry, attributed to a Jack Sheehan of Minneapolis. "Murdoch will defile it and turn it into another example of his legendarily low-brow offerings. No agreement for editorial independence will endure -- it's not worth the paper on which it is printed. The craven Bancroft family should slink away in shame to ruminate on what they have done to one of the last beacons of American journalism."

Added James Rusconi: "This sale would truly be a travesty. One of the last bastions of objective news reporting is being swallowed up by the Murdoch/Fox News Corp propaganda machine."

The deal did not evoke universal scorn, to be sure. "In all seriousness, everyone should lighten up on this issue," wrote a reader called ibdnews2. "Considering the WSJ has a good reputation among readers, it would be stupid for Rupert to mess with the formula too much."

Some readers said they actively supported the idea. " I have no issues with Rupert and Fox and believe his resources will bring the DJ family to a much wider audience, especially the OpEd team which will be a major plus in my book," wrote Jonathan Warnund.

But critics outnumbered supporters by about four to one. Many correspondents echoed dale_steinmann's simple statement: "Cancel my subscription." Those who threatened to cancel the paper said they would turn to the Financial Times, the New York Times or the internet for their business news.

"I will never be able to trust the news in the WSJ again," wrote Margaret Owen Thorpe of Saint Paul, Minnesota. "I have read the WSJ since I was in junior high. My parents read it -- and Barron's. I'm not going to say how long that means I've had a trusted source ... but it's been a long, long time. No more."

Credibility was a major concern of many correspondents. "A 100 year old legacy of journalistic integrity reduced to a marketing vehicle, sensationalist pandering, political soap box: See Fox News," wrote James Haverkos of Columbus, Ohio. "I will not renew the subscription."

Many people who wrote did so to simply register their resignation to an irresistible deal.

"It's just business, but in the end global business will be the loser," wrote C.K. Patterson. "Once Murdoch and his surrogates fully infiltrate, a singular source of reliable business information will be forever suspect. The goal will primarily be News Corp profit and PR, not objectivity."

by Mark Stein