Bancrofts back to drawing board on proposal

The Bancroft family that controls Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, has rejected a proposal designed by its attorneys to protect the paper from interference and gone back to the drawing board to come up with tougher guidelines. The new proposal would then be sent to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch for consideration.

Richard Perez-Pena of The New York Times wrote, “The Bancroft family debated and rebuffed the plan, drawn up by its lawyers at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York and at Hemenway & Barnes in Boston. Even so, the proposal offers a look into the thinking of the family and its advisers and suggests a baseline set of demands behind which the Bancrofts do not want to retreat.

“The family had originally called for creation of a panel, named by the members, that would have the sole power to hire and fire The Wall Street Journal’s top editors, who, in turn, would have that power over their subordinates. The panel would also name its own successors so that Mr. Murdoch would never gain editorial control.

“The proposal considered this week would have created such a committee, but three of its five members would have been chosen jointly by the News Corporation and the Bancrofts, or a family trust or foundation, according to people who read it. The family would have named the other two.”

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