News Corp. selects Bancroft for board seat amid family bickering

News Corp. has selected a 27-year-old, opera-singing member of the Bancroft family to sit on its board after it closes the deal to acquire Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, write Matthew Karnitschnig and Sarah Ellison of the Journal.

The Bancrofts own a controlling stake in Dow Jones, but apparently they missed numerous deadlines to make their selection for the board seat, the reporters wrote. They will formally vote next month to sell the company.

The story stated, “The end result has brought no more harmony to the family. Instead of the seasoned newspaper veteran some family members and many journalists had hoped for, the family’s representative will be Natalie Bancroft, a 27-year-old opera singer living in Europe who, by her own admission, is a relative neophyte to the worlds of both journalism and commerce.

“‘I don’t think we’ve distinguished ourselves in how we’ve handled this,’ said the family’s lawyer, Michael Elefante in a recent interview.

“For many in the Bancroft family, sending a representative to News Corp.’s board was a way of easing the pain in deciding to sell Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, a custodianship that had been the wellspring of their wealth and pride for generations. Some within the family were embarrassed that they had appeared indecisive and fractious during the acquisition process, and wanted to send a message by making a choice that indicated their respect for journalistic ideals.

“Instead, their deliberations misfired. ‘This entire, sad and pathetic, final episode is a fiasco,’ family member Crawford Hill said in a recent email to his relatives. ‘No wonder we lost Dow Jones!!'”

Read more here, including the correspondence between family members.