Categories: OLD Media Moves

Dow Jones would make sense for Buffett

TheStreet.com senior writer Mark DeCambre writes Friday that billionaire Warren Buffett, who has previously said he wasn’t interested in making a bid for Dow Jones & Co., the owner of The Wall Street Journal, would be a perfect owner for the business news publisher.

DeCambre wrote, “But given the financial difficulties of the newspaper business, the ranks of possible buyers appear limited to deep-pocketed investors who can take a financial hit in exchange for the cachet of owning a widely read, highly respected publication.

“That’s where Buffett comes in. He loves the newspaper business almost as much as Murdoch, who wants to pay $5 billion for Dow Jones. To some degree, Murdoch clearly considers Dow Jones’ The Wall Street Journal a trophy asset, rather than a financial one.

“The same could well be true of Buffett, though it’s impossible to know for sure. A call to Buffett’s office was fielded by his assistant, who said he was unavailable to comment.

“Still, the 76-year-old financial guru already owns the Buffalo News in New York and sits on the board of The Washington Post.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.