Towel Talk: Rupert's top stories

Dow Jones & Company, Inc. (NYSE: DJ)'s Wall Street Journal (a.k.a., The Towel) occupies a unique spot in the media firmament. As I pointed out earlier in the year, it changed its format and now looks to me like a Holiday Inn bath towel. Towel Talk offers a perspective on its news and views.

The soap opera within the Bancroft family continues about whether to sell The Towel to News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) -- Reuters reports that Rupert has given the Bancrofts until the end of today to decide. Meanwhile, I thought it would be interesting to imagine how the Towel would look under Rupert's control.

To that end, here are four headlines I imagine will run in a Towel landing on my driveway in the near future:

• Hillary, Bin Laden conspired on false stories about poisoned Chinese pet food
• China overtakes U.S. as world's largest economy
• Democracy breaks out in Middle East, Bush's Iraq policy vindicated
• Sources: Barack Obama revealed as leader of Al Qaeda in America

Incidentally, if Rupert does take control of The Towel, I plan to change the name of this column to Rupert's Rag. Given The Towel's stock price of $54.70 -- $5.30 below Rupert's $60 a share offer -- I think investors are as unsure as I am of the outcome.

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in News Corp.