Murdoch Wanted Dow Jones More
You can bet serious money — billions even — that the article about the sale of The Wall Street Journal and the rest of Dow Jones & Company in today’s Journal will be fully and ferociously reported, with no quarter given to its new owner, Rupert Murdoch.
But given Mr. Murdoch’s history and human nature, how long will that last?
The reputation of The Journal is now in the hands of Mr. Murdoch, who did not end up as the owner of one of the world’s best newspapers because he is a paragon of journalistic principle. In the end, the News Corporation’s capture of Dow Jones can be boiled down to one simple fact: Mr. Murdoch wanted it more.
He wanted it more than other potential bidders, like General Electric, Pearson and Ronald W. Burkle, who never came close to challenging his audacious bid. He wanted it more in the end than many of the Bancrofts did — or at least he offered more than they were able to pass up. He wanted it enough to make a deal for editorial independence that seems to run against his entire history as a owner.
We tend to overanalyze media moguls, in part because of their primacy in the current age. Yes, owning a pivot point in financial news will create some tidy synergies — content for a new Fox business channel to compete with CNBC on cable television, a global foothold for financial data, coverage of all of his competitors in The Journal.
(Note to other media moguls keeping track at home: Mr. Murdoch just bought the scorecard.)
But his purchase is a reminder that the unthinkable is often doable, given the loot and the will. Mr. Murdoch is buying an American newspaper because he’s a sentimentalist, not because he has shown any particular skill at making money with them. His Midas touch in foreign tabloids, television, movies, and more recently, digital properties, turns a little rusty when American publications are involved.
His ownership of The New York Post (twice) is an artistic success, but suggests that his love of American print is just that — irrational, driven by an attraction for the kind of power print conveys, and only made possible through his success on other platforms.
The Bancrofts have a sentimental side as well, but the resolution should not have surprised anyone. If the family members did not want to sell, they would have had to slam the door and get the nail gun out on May 2, the day the offer was made public.
The Bancrofts’ wan demurral set in motion market dynamics that blew the door open. Once a stock that had been mired at $36 goes to $60, a huge new constituency for change buys into the stock, one that will sue like crazy if change is not forthcoming.
So the Bancrofts join the line of other great American family newspaper dynasties — the Ridders, the McCormicks and the Chandlers — that have gotten out of the business in the last few years. The takeaway may not necessarily be that newspapers and family ownership doesn’t mix as much as newspapers and absentee ownership are a bad combination.
After Mr. Murdoch made his bold offer, the Bancrofts suddenly woke up and were cast in the role of parents seeking to adopt a child that they had neglected in the first place. The Hail Mary passes that Christopher Bancroft and others who fought against the sale heaved late in the fourth quarter were no substitute for the lack of basic blocking and tackling back when they were still in the game.
What will The Journal be with Mr. Murdoch at the helm? At heart, he’s a tabloid newsman but critics expecting headlines like “Hedgeless Funds in Stop-Loss Market” may be disappointed.
In the near term, or at least until the shareholders’ annual meeting, Mr. Murdoch will need to make nice with the company he just bought and run his new prize in way that demonstrates that he plans to live up to the editorial independence deal he struck with the Bancroft family.
But he’ll be challenged early by the Journal staff in the form of a hard-hitting story about one of his many business interests. Mr. Murdoch is probably too smart to take the bait.
In the long run, however, it will be outside scrutiny from readers that will be more likely to keep him from interfering in the paper’s news pages, not an editorial independence committee.
Like most of its fans, I will continue to read The Wall Street Journal expecting the best, but keeping an eye out for the worst.
