News Corp-Dow Jones: It's All Over Bar The Voting

The ink isn't dry, but if the news from CNBC is to be believed, the uncertainty over the future of Dow Jones is over. After taking over the negotiations last week, the board of Dow Jones seems to have come to an agreement with Rupert Murdoch over the biggest sticking point: the editorial independence of the Wall Street Journal. I'm sure there are lots of family members who don't like it, but at this point the writing's on the wall.

Utterly failing to have any effect on the negotiations was the NYT's damp squib of a two-part series on Murdoch, which met with a pitch-perfect response from News Corp:

“News Corp. has consistently cooperated with The New York Times in its coverage of the company. However, the agenda for this unprecedented series is so blatantly designed to further the Times’s commercial self interests — by undermining a direct competitor poised to become an even more formidable competitor — that it would be reckless of us to participate in their malicious assault. Ironically, The Times, by using its news pages to advance its own corporate business agenda, is doing the precise thing they accuse us of doing without any evidence.”

It's still conceivable that a minority of Bancrofts and Ottaways, vacillating about how they will go down in history, will attempt a rear-guard action to block the sale of Dow Jones to News Corp. In principle, holders of just 9.1% of Class B stock could block a sale, and it might be possible to find that many refuseniks if there was a concerted campaign. But such a campaign would destroy what little semblance of family unity there is left, to the benefit of no one.

Which means, I suspect, that there are champagne corks popping at 1211 Sixth Avenue right around now.

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