Dow Jones Board Takes Over Talks on Future of Company

WSJ.COM ^

[Sub-Driver]

Dow Jones Board Takes Over Talks on Future of Company By SARAH ELLISON June 20, 2007 5:13 p.m.

Dow Jones & Co.'s board of directors, frustrated with the pace of the Bancroft family's negotiations with News Corp., said it would take over talks on the future of the company.

The move, approved by the the four board members affiliated with the Bancrofts -- three family members and their attorney -- is likely to speed any deal between News Corp. and Dow Jones, the owner of The Wall Street Journal, and highlights a growing rift between Bancroft family members and the company they control.

In recent weeks, members of the Bancroft family had grown wary of any deal with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., and had been laboring over a proposal to safeguard the editorial independence of Dow Jones. But as the family's negotiations with each other and their advisors continued with no resolution in sight, the company's directors were growing increasingly concerned that by not responding to Mr. Murdoch, the family was endangering the negotiations.

In a statement released after the close of market, the company said the board would "take the lead in addressing all aspects of the proposal and all other strategic alternatives, including remaining independent." The statement added that the family would continue to insist upon certain provisions designed to ensure "journalistic and editorial independence and integrity." (Read the statement6.)

[Uncle Hal]

It looks like Murdoch is getting very close taking over Dow Jones.

[aShepard]

Hey, not so fast!

GE and Pearson (London Financial Times,) is trying to form a JV to take over the WSJ.

Whoever wins, I hope that the editorial board continues to steer the paper into the best non-partisian newspaper in the country, and it has sounded that this is the fervent wish of the majority of the voting shareholders, the Bancrofts.