A few thoughts on News Corp. and Dow Jones

News Corp. is slowly inching its way into getting what it wants out of Dow Jones—which is of course to own it. There's been a huge amount written on this story since it broke several weeks ago, not least by DJ publications themselves. One thing hasn't been pointed out by anyone, though, is the irony of a company that has made free market economics the cornerstone of its publishing content, concerning itself not with the best offer it may ever get, but whether its legacy and integrity will be maintained if they decide to sell. I'm not saying this is bad, but it does underscore how any theory can often be undermined when it comes to your personal predicament.

It was also interesting to read in last week's The Business magazine (the one that was once a weekly broadsheet and is published by Andrew Neil, a former News International acolyte) about how Murdoch Senior brought along Murdoch Junior (that is, James) along to the meeting he recently had with the controlling Bancroft family—their first face-to-face. James of course had experience at the News Corp. Asia pay-TV subsidiary Star before moving to the UK to head up BSkyB, and this was certainly one of the reasons why he would have been brought into the meeting (since apparently the Bancrofts and DJ journalists are concerned about Murdoch's chummy relationships in China). But it was also a way of telling the sceptical Bancrofts, "Hey! I'm a family guy, too, and I care about legacy as much as the next one."

It may have also been Rupert's way of introducing the Bancrofts to the man who may end up getting tasked with running the business, should it become a division of his family's empire.

James Murdoch has definitely come a long way since his scruffier days of running a small music label in New York City, shrugging off the inevitable family association that has now become the centre of what he does, and a huge force in the media industry.