Rupert Murdoch appeared at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference yesterday (uh, WTF, Goldman Sachs, was Communapalooza taken?) and strongly hinted that he was going to take the Wall Street Journal's website free. He also outlined the ways in which News Corp. would use the paper to bolster its new Fox Business Channel.
A Box patron sent in the following in response to our query: "I happened to be at the Box night of raid. Very shocking to say the least. Didn't know what was going on as cops checked liquor bottles behind the bar with flashlights and went through every nook and cranny of the place. Still people were drinking and dancing like nothing was going on. Cuba made a quick exit as we were all hanging out at his table." Yeah, maybe it was a sound complaint, but maybe it was also not a sound complaint.
Some news from deep inside The Box: "It was a sound complaint. Then the police told people to leave but obviously once you drop thousands on a couple bottles and table you don't wanna go so patrons left the building belligerent with open bottles and they were arresting them all over the sidewalk." Mmm... okay! But what about the whole searching people in line for the bathroom? How does that jibe with a noise complaint? Maybe the bathroom line was really, really loud.
Remember those blissful days back in April, before anyone knew about Rupert Murdoch's evil plans to take over the Wall Street Journal and the biggest media acquisition story going was the one about Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell's plans to buy Tribune? Yeah, we thought we were done with that one too. Unfortunately, not yet! The Times, Journal and Los Angeles Times all take a look at the deal, scheduled to be completed tomorrow, and agree: The damn thing might not happen. Why?
The best piece of the weekend concerning Rupert Murdoch's takeover of Dow Jones came from former Journal employee Joseph Nocera, who wrote (behind the TimesSelect wall, naturally) about how the takeover happened through the lens of a disgruntled Bancroft family member and Murdoch himself. Essentially, the Bancrofts were too divided and dysfunctional to ever stand a chance against the rapacious Rupert. "I just didn't realize that they were so disorganized," says Murdoch, who promises not to fiddle about too much with the paper ("I won't meddle any more than Arthur Sulzberger does."). Nocera buys it. But oh yes there is more!
Today, there's a great spasm of coverage of Dow Jones agreeing to Rupert Murdoch's purchase of the company. But what are the people really saying?
Yesterday, the Bancroft family was undecided about accepting Rupert Murdoch's bid for Dow Jones. Today? The deal seems likely to happen, but who the hell knows? There's a proposal on the table for "the Dow Jones board to create a fund to cover payments to firms advising Bancroft family members." Those payments are expected to be around $30 million, but "the money would be paid only if at least one of two key holdout shareholders agreed to the deal: Christopher Bancroft and a group of trusts managed by Denver law firm Holme Roberts & Owen."
New York Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno continues to pound away at Eliot Spitzer, raising the possibility that the Senate may compel the governor to testify in one of the multiple investigations called for by Bruno over whether or not the governor's office improperly used the state police to track Bruno's questionable air travel. Good luck, says a spokesman for the governor, casting doubt on the Senate's constitutional authority to investigate internal executive affairs.
On the second day after the release of a report from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office revealing that staffers working for Governor Eliot Spitzer aggressively attempted to discredit Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, the stories keep coming. The governor was in Buffalo yesterday, where he couldn't avoid questions about the report. "All I can do is get back to business and that's what I am doing," he said. Meanwhile!
Could Rupert Murdoch's takeover bid for Dow Jones actually fail? That's the sense you get reading this morning's Wall Street Journal, which reports that divisions in the Bancroft family have hardened to the point where recalcitrant Bancrofts are invoking dead relatives (and dead Journal journalists) to argue against the sale. At Monday's meeting in Boston, Jane Cox MacElree, whose branch of the family controls 15% of Dow Jones' voting stock, "cited Daniel Pearl's death at the hands of kidnappers in 2002 in voicing her opposition to a bid by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to buy Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Journal, according to participants." How dramatic.
How screwed is Eliot Spitzer? That's probably the most important question after yesterday's release of a report by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that accuses "Mr. Spitzer's communications director, Darren Dopp, and a top state homeland security official of ordering state police to take extraordinary measures to track the use of air and ground police escorts by the Republican Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, in an effort to catch him abusing state resources."
We've finally found a way to make our Rupert Murdoch roundups of any interest to the general public! If (when) the News Corp. titan completes his takeover of Dow Jones, he'll have the right to rename the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Would he? The Street.com seems to think so? But what would he call it? The best we can come up with is the "Suck It, James Ottaway Industrial Average," which is not very good. Please leave your alternatives in the comment section!
"News Corp will meet Dow Jones directors this week in a session that could prove decisive in Rupert Murdoch's pursuit of the media group and its crown jewel, the Wall Street Journal newspaper," reports the Financial Times. Not so fast, says the Journal: "As News Corp. pursues its bid for Dow Jones & Co., a key member of the controlling Bancroft family, Christopher Bancroft, has launched his own last-ditch, long-shot crusade to block the deal, according to people familiar with the matter." Bancroft is talking to hedge funds and private equity folks in an attempt to buy more "super-voting shares" so as to scupper the deal. Slate's Jack Shafer still thinks the whole thing is a bad idea.
[Image:A.P.]
Conrad Black reactions and suppositions: The convicted fraudster is "likely to remain free after this week's bail hearing because he's a first-time offender who's repeatedly vowed to fight the charges against him." In an e-mail to the Toronto Globe & Mail, a defiant Black predicts that he will be cleared of the four charges on which he was found guilty: "'We move on to the next phase in this long war. We got rid of most of [the charges], and expect to get rid of the rest on appeal."
Today's developments in the continuing Rupert Murdoch saga:
Your daily dose of Rupert Murdoch news: In an extensive interview with Dow Jones director James Ottaway (who, you'll surely care to remember, controls approximately six percent of the company's voting shares), the recalcitrant stockholder reiterates his disdain for Murdoch, charging that no matter what the News Corp. head says, "It is clear that any promise of editorial independence will not be honored."
