Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

Rupert Murdoch spoke at The D Conference this week, and laid out more non-specific but interesting plans for The Journal.

For months, it's been speculated that Murdoch cares more about figuring out the actual structure of the paper, and then he'll get down to the dirty business of assigning the right reporters to the right assignements, and signing a few superstars.  read more »

We just caught up with Robert Thomson, who, it was just announced, will be the newspaper's next managing editor, on the phone. "I feel privileged," he said. "I'm looking forward with much excitement to making the Journal, and its news wires, which is the greatest news organization in the world, even greater."

He will move down to the newsroom's ninth floor tomorrow, and will take over chief editing duties over the paper immediately.  read more »

Here's the News Corp. press release. More coming shortly.

Robert Thomson has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, effective immediately, Rupert Murdoch, Chairman of Dow Jones & company, announced.

The Dow Jones Special Committee today unanimously endorsed Mr. Thomson's appointment following his nomination by the Company last week.

 read more »

With Rupert Murdoch talking about taking The Wall Street Journals Web site free, Financial Times is girding its loins for battle.

 

The newspaper announced yesterday that later this month it will initiate a program that allows online readers to access 30 articles a month without registering as paying members of the site.

Presently most of its content requires a subscription.  read more »

In the wake of Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of Dow Jones, another veteran Wall Street Journal reporter is leaving the paper to join Conde Nast’s Portfolio.

Scot Paltrow, a senior special writer for The Wall Street Journal, will join Portfolio as a contributing editor, starting Sept. 1.

He follows Peter Waldman there; the investigative features writer announced in July that he would be leaving the Journal for Portfolio after 22 years.  read more »

Yesterday, lots of Wall Street Journal staffers and one former Dow Jones board member, James Ottaway, talked to the Observer about what, in the final hours of News Corp.'s bid to buy Dow Jones, had increasingly become the central issue: Could Dow Jones set up a $30 million fund to pay the lawyers and bankers who had advised the Bancrofts on the sale-and have Rupert Murdoch foot the bill?  read more »

When the Dow Jones board agreed to sell to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., a condition of the sale was that News Corp. establish a "Special Committee" to guarantee the editorial independence of Dow Jones publications.

That part of the sale agreement was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. And for the obsessives, FishbowlNY has posted the entire agreement online here.  read more »

Here was former Dow Jones board member James Ottaway Jr.'s reaction to the news that the Dow Jones board was ready to approve the sale to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.:

It’s a bad thing for Dow Jones and American journalism that the Bancroft Family could not resist Rupert Murdoch’s generous offer.

It’s a sad thing that the 105-year family tradition of protecting Dow Jones independence as a public trust will end.  read more »

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A spokesman for the Bancroft family just sent us this statement:

“The process of canvassing the Bancroft family members and trustees as to whether they wish to commit their respective shares to the proposed News Corporation transaction is still under way. Any suggestion that the process has been completed and/or that a particular level of support has been established is at this point premature."

David Faber, the CNBC reporter who first broke the news that Rupert Murdoch had offered $5 billion to buy Dow Jones, is now reporting that Dow Jones will agree to the sale.

According to Faber, a "definitive agreement" is expected from the Dow Jones board tonight. You can click through here to see CNBC video of his report.

A print extract accompanying the video presently reads in part:  read more »

While you were sleeping, the proposal to sell Dow Jones, Inc. to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. got more complicated.

The Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones Inc., missed a self-imposed deadline yesterday to line up enough votes to agree to sell the company to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.  read more »

The Wall Street Journal reports today that the Bancroft family is still divided over whether to sell Dow Jones, Inc. to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. for $5 billion.  read more »

At around noon on Tuesday, Geoffrey V. Raymond, a New York based portrait artist, showed up at One World Financial Center, the offices of Dow Jones, Inc., with a four-foot-tall painting of Rupert Murdoch's face.

Security officers clapped on their headsets, unsure of the building's regulations for unexpected art exhibitions. After some deliberation they sent him curbside, where he remained for the rest of the afternoon.

"I have carved a niche out of painting controversial Wall Street figures," Mr. Raymond said, standing proudly next to his latest, “The Annotated Murdoch.” With the face centered on the canvas, passersby stopped to write their thoughts around the border with magic markers that Mr. Raymond provided. A red marker was reserved for Dow Jones employees.

A self-described cross between Jackson Pollack and Chuck Close, Mr. Raymond has created images of former New York Stock Exchange chairman Richard Grasso and Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein. He said he is currently working on a portrait of CNBC reporter Maria Bartiromo (nickname, “Money Honey”) as the Virgin Mary.
He said he chose to paint Mr. Murdoch because of his internal anxiety about the potential Dow Jones take over.

"The acquisition of The Wall Street Journal by somebody like Rupert Murdoch is certainly cause for concern,” he said. “I find it ratifying that people want to write on my painting.”

By mid-afternoon around 30 commenters ratified Mr. Raymond’s reconstitution of Mr. Murdoch.

“I don't care,” scrawled one strangely apathetic passerby. “Keep the WSJ out of this scumbag's hands” wrote a more opinionated signatory.

“We want truth liberty and the American way," one Dow Jones employee wrote, while another complained, "Fox News is no news."

On the center of the canvas in red ink were written the words, "news is sacred."

Joshua Prager, a senior special writer at The Wall Street Journal, approached the canvas to write the legend: “Unfair and Imbalanced, stay away.”

“I think people have a lot to say and a lot of thoughts to express,” Mr. Prager said. “This is just another outlet for them to do so.”

Mr. Raymond said that lots of Dow Jones employees had looked at the painting, but only five had actually written on it by mid-afternoon.

He said one employee had begun writing but stopped when he saw his editor walking by.

"I think there's a degree of corporate paranoia," Mr. Raymond said.

Mr. Raymond plans to stand outside of Dow Jones everyday this week, weather permitting, and will measure his success in graffiti.

And then he’ll put the painting up for sale on Ebay, starting the bidding at $3,500.

"It only takes two rich guys to make the action a success," Mr. Raymond said with a smile.

One previously undecided member of the Bancroft family, who votes about 15 percent of Dow Jones shares, has come out against a deal to sell the company to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., The Wall Street Journal reports.

Jane Cox MacElree, whose daughter, Leslie Hill, brought Brad Greenspan and Ron Burkle's counterproposal before the board of directors of the company, is said to have stated her position during family meetings begun in Boston yesterday.  read more »

Shortly before 8 p.m., Bancroft family lead trustee Michael Elefante emerged through a revolving door, from the back entrance of the Hilton Hotel, in Boston’s financial district. There, he very briefly addressed reporters, waiting outside in the light rain.  read more »

On Thursday, July 19 Dieter von Holtzbrinck resigned from his position as a board member of the Dow Jones Company—a move that the Wall Street Journal first reported on Thursday evening.

Mr. Holtzbrinck’s actions come two days after his fellow board members voted in favor of Mr. Murdoch’s $5 billion bid to purchase Dow Jones. Mr. Holtzbrink abstained from the vote.  read more »

Today's Wall Street Journal has some valuable retread over the events at Tuesday night's meeting between representatives of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and the board of directors of Dow Jones Inc., which is considering selling itself to the Australian-born media mogul.  read more »

The Securities and Exchange Commission has given notice to Dow Jones board member David K.P. Li that he will be investigated for insider trading after a couple to whom he is "indirectly linked" made $8.2 million in a matter of days by buying Dow Jones stock immediately before news leaked that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. was planning a takeover bid.  read more »

After yesterday’s big meeting between News Corp. chair Rupert Murdoch and Dow Jones C.E.O. Richard Zannino, the Journal reported that Rupert Murdoch “suggested the possibility of nominating [Mr. Steiger] to the board of News Corp., according to a person who was there.”

But the last we heard, Mr. Steiger’s special assignment was to oversee the paper’s coverage of the Dow Jones deal.  read more »

Last night, Dow Jones Richard F. Zannino finished a marathon session with News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch by hammering out a tentative agreement to sell him the company.  read more »

The Wall Street Journal is citing sources on both sides of the deal saying that the purchase of Dow Jones Inc. by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is almost a done deal.  read more »

On a recent Saturday, James Ottaway Jr., the retired newspaper executive, attended a wedding in Rhode Island. The bride, a young artist named Xu Jin, was a longtime friend of Mr. Ottaway’s.  read more »

The News Corp. chief, according to the Associated Press, appeared "frustrated" with the Bancrofts:

"They keep changing their minds," Murdoch told The Associated Press in Sun Valley, Idaho, during a conference of top media executives hosted by investment banker Herbert Allen. Murdoch is a regular guest at the conference, which has become a landmark event for media power players since the early 1980s.

(AP via Forbes)

On Tuesday afternoon, Steve Yount, president of Local 1096, the union that represents Dow Jones employees, dined at the Waldorf in midtown Manhattan with Brad Greenspan, the founder of MySpace.  read more »

Supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle is set to meet with members of the Dow Jones board today to discuss a possible bid to rival that of News Corp. magnate Rupert Murdoch.

Mr. Murdoch is said to be hammering out the details of a deal, and London newspapers Friday declared it all but done.

Still, rumors surfacing over the weekend that Mr. Burkle would meet with board members were confirmed yesterday.

Of course, all reports offer the conventional wisdom that Mr. Burkle is unlikely to be able to top Mr. Murdoch's offer of $5 billion.  read more »

We'll have more to say shortly on Joseph Kahn's pretty impressive and exhaustive account of Rupert Murdoch's activities in China.

But the biggest news in the piece has to be the war that's now going on between Mr. Murdoch and The Times.  read more »

“I've written a piece on Murdoch in China that should appear shortly,” Mr. Kahn told The Observer, via email.“I've written a piece on Murdoch in China that should appear shortly,” Mr. Kahn told The Observer, via email.  read more »

The more urgent piece, coming from Siklos, Sorkin and Perez-Pena, who have been leading the newspaper's coverage of the Murdoch bid, asserts that the Bancrofts and the Murdoch's are close to finalizing a deal that is meant to guarantee editorial independence to Dow Jones publications if a deal to buy the company went through. The arrangement is a prerequisite for a sale by the Bancrofts, and though both sides cautioned that it was not yet clear whether the sides could come to terms on other features of a deal, the editorial independence framework has been regarded as the crucial piece for some weeks now:

If an agreement on newsroom independence were to be made by the Dow Jones board, the News Corporation and the Bancroft family, the only barrier standing in the way of Mr. Murdoch’s control of The Wall Street Journal would be the selling price.

 read more »

Here's an email IAPE President Steve Yount just sent to members.

Friends,
Just a quick response to a story that appeared on Fortune.com. In case you missed it, it began, "Supermarket mogul Ron Burkle could make an offer this week with a surprising partner and less-than-high minded support from the union.." Not so.
IAPE has been doing what it can to preserve the independence and integrity of the publications our members produce. To the extent that there are people interested in making a bid for Dow Jones who share our commitment to the independence of this company, the integrity of our product s and the economic well-being of our members, IAPE is willing to work with them.
But we haven't made any deal or endorsed any bid-- and won't without first an open debate among the membership and vote by the IAPE Board of Directors.

Steve Yount
President
IAPE CWA 1096

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that G.E. and Pearson are exploring a joint bid to buy Dow Jones, Inc.  read more »

This afternoon, Rupert Murdoch and his son James meet with three members of the Bancroft family to discuss his bid to buy Dow Jones, Inc., publisher among other things of The Wall Street Journal. The meeting will be held at the offices of Wachtell Lipton, advisers to the Bancrofts, and has been designed as "part social gathering and part business meeting," the Journal reports.  read more »

“I’m disappointed that the family is going to meet with Murdoch and am very skeptical that it can write any agreement to guarantee the editorial independence of Dow Jones—independence that Rupert Murdoch would respect,” the Dow Jones shareholder tells The Observer.  read more »

Since the day Rupert Murdoch's bid to buy Dow Jones, Inc. became public, The Wall Street Journal, a Dow Jones property, has been reporting assiduously on the reactions of the Bancroft family, which controls the company.

Slightly buried in today's Wall Street Journal piece about a statement from the Bancrofts released last night indicating their willingness to talk to Mr. Murdoch about a sale:  read more »

In a statement released last night, the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones Inc., accepted Rupert Murdoch's invitation to meet members of his family to discuss the possibility of selling the company to News Corp.  read more »

The Wall Street Journal has published a letter the newspaper reports was distributed this morning to members of the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones, Inc., the Journal's parent company.  read more »

That, at least, is most certainly the correct translation of a press release just put out by Dow Jones, Inc.

Here's the full text of it:

+++++++++++++++++++

DOW JONES DISCLOSES INFORMATION RECEIVED

FROM BANCROFT FAMILY REPRESENTATIVE  read more »

News of News Corp’s bid to buy Dow Jones was felt quickly on the stock market this afternoon.

Dow Jones’s stock price, which started out the day at $37.12, rose 58%, or $20.95, to $57.28, where the stock was halted by the NYSE until further notice, according to the International Herald Tribune.

This news has also, of course, affected the stocks of other major print media outfits today.

As of this posting, The New York Times Co. had reached a high of $26.40 by mid day, after opening at $23.41; The Washington Post Co. opened at $744.70 and went to $766.65.  read more »

In a statement released this afternoon, the union representing Dow Jones employees stated its opposition to the bid by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to buy Dow Jones. "The staff, from top to bottom, opposes a Rupert Murdoch takeover of Dow Jones & Co.," the statement reads.  read more »

As contract negotiations continue with Dow Jones, the IAPE union is announcing today that they have unionized the company's Harborside location, located in Jersey City, NJ.

For months, the IAPE has aggressively tried to gain a majority at the Jersey office, (at least according to the New York Post), where roughly 230 Dow Jones employees work.

UPDATE: A Dow Jones source writes in that the Jersey City office is not actually a Wall Street Journal operation, but part of Dow Jones Newswires. The Observer regrets the error.

--Michael Calderone Full memo after the jump  read more »

IAPE 1096, the union representing Wall Street Journal staff, responded to the Dow Jones memo outlining the company's new "strategy project" with a memo of its own. Full text after the jump.

Friends - on the heels of the outsourcing of 31 IAPE-represented employees today in South Brunswick comes the news that management will review the company's news operations, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron's and Dow Jones Newswires, with the intent of improving them.

However, management must take pains not to mistake attrition for efficiency, or sacrifice quality in the pursuit of cost savings.  read more »

Too often, efforts to improve the quality or scope of Dow Jones publications -- including the recent launch of the Journal's Weekend Edition and, before that, Personal Journal -- have instead left new ventures with fewer staff and resources than they need or were promised, and came with short-sighted cost cuts elsewhere in the enterprise....

On the first of this month, incoming Dow Jones CEO Rich Zannino said hello--"we...have an ever-expanding passion for winning"--while outgoing CEO Peter Kann said goodbye--"I....look back on decisions I wish I had made differently." Full twin memos after the jump.

--Gabriel Sherman  read more »

On Tuesday, Jan.  read more »

“I don’t think I’ve kept in touch with Bob over the years,” said Washington  read more »

Maureen Dowd and Thomas L.  read more »

Some magazines-like some people-you don't especially want to talk sex with.  read more »

Most magazine writers only get one venue for a moody portrait photo per issue: the contributors' pag  read more »

Some days, the contest between the Daily News and the New York Post is all about counterprogramming:  read more »

Things are getting a little less polite in the ongoing labor dispute between Dow Jones, the parent c  read more »

"I really thought they were going to find the stuff," said Washington Post staff writer Barton Gellm  read more »

I suppose there are some people who say we should have acquired Cosmo or Rolling Stone or something  read more »