Dow Jones, WSJ should go non-profit

Former Wall Street Journal reporter Joe Mathewson, who now teaches at Northwestern University, writes for BusinessWeek that Dow Jones & Co., the parent of the Journal, should ditch its $5 billion offer from News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and become a non-profit.

Mathewson wrote, “It’s a shame that Dow Jones and the Bancroft family—like other newspaper owners in similar straits—don’t appear to have carefully explored the not-for-profit route. Public broadcasting is superb, well supported by contributions from an appreciative audience. Do we consider it defective because it pays no taxes? Of course not. It produces quality journalism, significantly enhancing our civic life and our democracy.

“Aren’t newspapers equally important for the same reasons? Isn’t The Wall Street Journal, with its formidable coverage of our economy and business, especially valuable to us all, even those who don’t read it? Yes—because business and government leaders do, and they heed it. The Journal monitors the world of money, a realm that’s vital to everyone. Clearly the paper would be just as valuable, just as influential, under a not-for-profit umbrella, like the Poynter Institute’s ownership of the St. Petersburg Times.

“How to convert a business to a not-for-profit isn’t obvious, unless the property is so decrepit that the owner simply elects to make a deduction of it, and that’s not the case here.”

Read more here.