Maria Aspan of The New York Times writes Monday that Barron’s, part of Dow Jones & Co., may nicely survive an acquisition by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch.
Aspan wrote, “Barron’s, the weekly financial and investment newspaper, is a prestigious publication on Wall Street and a profitable piece of Dow Jones. Its ability to influence the markets can equal The Journal’s; stocks it picks on a Saturday morning often experience a ‘Barron’s bounce’ when Wall Street reopens on Monday.
“Dow Jones has focused its efforts on safeguarding editorial independence for The Wall Street Journal in the event of an acquisition by Mr. Murdoch. But Barron’s and some other assets, like the Web site MarketWatch, have no such guarantees.
“A Dow Jones spokeswoman, Linda Dunbar, said in an e-mail message, ‘We felt it was appropriate to cover the roughly 1,800 news staff at The Journal and Newswires and our editorial page in the comprehensive way that we did as these operations represent the vast majority of our news staff.’ (Barron’s has about 50 journalists for its print and online versions.)”
Read more here.
