Categories: OLD Media Moves

Greenspan encounters Murdoch as a rival again

Brad Stone of The New York Times writes Monday about Internet entrepreneur Brad Greenspan, who is leading an investment group that wants to buy a 25 percent stake in Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, and potentially thwart an offer by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch acquired the company that owned MySpace, but Greenspan — who owned 10 percent of the company — thought that Murdoch wasn’t paying enough for the business.

Stone wrote, “Although a judge dismissed the case in December (Mr. Greenspan is considering an appeal) the market, at least, has confirmed his essential judgment. News Corporation got a bargain when it picked up the social networking site, and the deal is now viewed as one of the smartest in Internet history.

“But Mr. Greenspan insists his attempt to outmaneuver Mr. Murdoch this time is not personal.

“‘It’s a business transaction and I see a huge upside for the investors I’m bringing into this,’ he said. ‘And I love the Wall Street Journal brand.’ But there were also unique forces at work behind the scenes of the News Corporationâ€™s acquisition of Intermix, some of them set into motion by Mr. Greenspan.”

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.