That's the rumor, according to UK magazine The Business (not to be confused with The Bidness, a Rasta triphop zine out of Staines). Purchase price: $5 billion.
According to sources acting for Dow Jones in the negotiations, the deal was delayed until agreement was reached on a legally-binding undertaking by Murdoch to preserve the Wall Street Journal’s editorial independence.
Under the terms of this agreement, News Corporation will have the ability to hire and fire the top editors and publishers (a matter on which Murdoch would not budge); but a nominally independent five-person committee will have the right of veto on these decisions.
Full disclosure: I've written for both the NY Post and The Weekly Standard and I've been to the News Corp. Christmas party (the food in "Australia" last year was tops), so take whatever I say in the vein of corporate obeisance. What sort of difference, hypothetically speaking, would non-independence make on the Journal's editorial page?
Ben Smith at Politico puts it best: “[P]erhaps the China bureau shouldn't be the only ones worrying. What will become of the Clintons' long-time persecutors on the editorial board? Will their anti-Clinton posture go the way of the New York Post's?”
Of course, Dow Jones says it's all untrue, the only agreement that has been struck is the editorial independence one, begging the question of why such a deal is necessary if a sale is not imminent.
One of the few things I liked in I Am Number Four is Teresa Palmer’s energetic performance.
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