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It was the news as soon as I logged into my computer this morning from my West Coast office: Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) had made a whopping $5 billion bid for Dow Jones & Co. (NYSE: DJ). The bid was unsolicited and, it seems, entirely hostile to the Bancroft family, who controls Dow Jones and seems to be rejecting the generous offer.

It's a cute story, very Guys & Dolls. On one hand we have Dow Jones with its flagship brand, the Wall Street Journal. The paper is everything about wealth -- its very emblem the center of all the world's markets, Wall Street -- the editors are known for their conservative bent, the writers are known for their unparalleled and brainy research, even the design is known for its long-time avoidance of peripherals like color printing and photographs. On the other hand, we have Rupert Murdoch and his gang of vagabonds, from FOX broadcasting (need I really say more than "Next on FOX... Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?") to the vast spoiled brat of recent acquisition MySpace. They're very other-side-of-the-tracks, the kind of news organization that would get a tattoo on its buttocks and then try to slip it in as the senior picture in the high school yearbook.

They're not a match made in heaven. They're a match made for Joe Millionaire, or Broadway. It's not real life; it wouldn't work. Whether or not the money is right, the styles are so vastly different, the respective organizations' reputations so opposite, any so-called "synergy" would be lost before the first page of the merger agreement was drafted.

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Dow Jones and News Corp: Very 'Guys & Dolls,' very wrong originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 01 May 2007 20:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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