Looking at the potential bidders for Dow Jones & Company — Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and a joint effort by General Electric and Pearson — some reporters and editors at The Wall Street Journal are calling the decision a choice between “trash or slash.” And they are wondering which might be worse.
Ever since the News Corporation bid for Dow Jones, The Journal’s owner, journalists there have predicted that Mr. Murdoch would dumb down and politicize the news pages. But now that G.E. and Pearson are weighing whether to make a rival offer, Dow Jones employees fear the results would be deep job cuts and a devotion to the bottom line, not great journalism.
Several Journal reporters who had hoped for an alternative bidder now describe it as a case of “be careful what you wish for.”
<snip>
“If you put a gun to my head, I’d take Murdoch over G.E.-Pearson,” said a senior editor at The Journal who declined to be identified because the deal is not complete. This editor reasoned that the G.E.-Pearson deal would mean immediate cuts and deteriorating quality, while a Bancroft family deal struck with Mr. Murdoch might hold off fundamental change for a few years.
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