Categories: OLD Media Moves

Steiger: High offer is testament to biz journalists

Jon Fine of BusinessWeek has posted a memo from Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger in which he provides some guidance to the paper’s staff in handling Tuesday’s $5 billion offer from News Corp. to acquire its parent, Dow Jones & Co.

Steiger wrote:

–It is always crucial to be accurate and fair. It is intensely crucial when we are the subject of the story.

–That an offer for the company would come at a price so far above the recent market, particularly at a time when newspaper stocks have been depressed, is a testament to the high quality and integrity of your work and the huge respect it carries.

–The best thing for all of us to do is to continue that high-quality work, and to avoid getting caught up in what-ifs. That is particularly true when you get calls from the media, which many of you will. My strong recommendation is that you refer all such calls to Bob Christie.

Read more here. Christie is head of PR for Dow Jones. Steiger steps down from the ME spot later this month.

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.