Categories: OLD Media Moves

Murdoch appears frustrated with progress of Dow Jones talks

The Associated Press is reporting that News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch is becoming frustrating with the lack of progress in talks to acquire Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal.

An AP reporter caught up with Murdoch at the Sun Valley media conference in Idaho.

The AP story stated, “Murdoch has offered $5 billion (â‚¬3.64 billion) for the company but has been entangled for several weeks in negotiations with the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones, largely over their concerns about safeguards for the Journal’s editorial independence and integrity.

“‘They keep changing their minds,’ Murdoch told The Associated Press in Sun Valley, Idaho, during a conference of top media executives hosted by investment banker Herbert Allen. Murdoch is a regular guest at the conference, which has become a landmark event for media power players since the early 1980s.

“Murdoch didn’t elaborate on the state of play with Dow Jones, and declined to comment on a recent approach made to Dow Jones by Brad Greenspan, an Internet entrepreneur who was an early investor in MySpace, a social networking site now owned by Murdoch’s company, News Corp.”

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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.