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Today's meeting between the larger-than-life news mogul Rupert Murdoch and the Bancroft family, coupon-clipping owners of Dow Jones, has gripped the little world of journalists. "The rotten old bastard intends to charm them all with his lies," warned Slate media critic Jack Shafer. The idea that Murdoch might get his mitts on the Wall Street Journal has folks scandalized, as though Larry Flynt were buying the New York City Ballet...
...Finally, there is a sign that one of the two major parties is worried about a possible third-party Bloomberg run. The Weekly Standard magazine, the Murdoch-owned bible of the neoconservative movement, has as its latest cover story a cartoon of a diminutive Bloomberg perched in an over-sized, throne-like chair, with the headline: "The Mystery of Michael Bloomberg: Why does a popular but mediocre mayor think he should be President?" Republicans are generally convinced that Ross Perot took a disproportionate share of his 20% of the vote in 1992 out of the hide of the incumbent Republican...
...younger Bancroft cousins began agitating for more shareholder-friendly management. They've gotten their way, to an extent. For the first time since Hugh Bancroft, the company has a CEO who didn't rise through the reporting and editing ranks. But the stock continued to flounder until Murdoch came along with his hugely attractive offer...
Which leaves Murdoch. As he emphasized in a letter to the Bancrofts, his company is a family enterprise too . He inherited Australia's Adelaide News from his father in 1952, and his children will get his stake in News Corp. It's yet another dual-share setup, with the Murdochs holding (after a share swap currently awaiting regulatory approval) 13% of company stock and 39% of the votes...
That is no majority--one key difference between the Murdochs and the Bancrofts. A bigger difference is that Murdoch has treated News Corp. not as a trust but as a vehicle to get richer and more powerful. From one newspaper in a provincial Australian city, he has built a global empire that now encompasses 20th Century Fox, MySpace and the Times of London. The man has shown a remarkable ability to sniff opportunity where others don't. But he is 76, he won't be around forever, and it's hard to say what News Corp. will...