There's an orgy of Murdochracy in today's Times. Richard Pérez-Peña and Louise Story report that, should Rupert Murdoch's bid for Dow Jones fail, layoffs at the Wall Street Journal are a near certainty. (Guess what? Same deal if he succeeds.) Perhaps aware of the impending cuts, editor Ellen Pollock has jumped to BusinessWeek, where she will become the Executive Editor and presumably keep an eye out for other talent ready to desert the rapidly sinking WSJ ship. Seeking to avoid Murdoch ownership, certain Dow Jones board members (including the Bancroft clan's Leslie Hill) are meeting with Ron Burkle to see if the grocery magnate can put together a rival bid. ("It is unclear what kind of offer, if any, Mr. Burkle would propose," reports the Journal, "but he has been exploring a structure for Dow Jones that would incorporate an employee stock-ownership plan, according to people close to him.") Finally, the Times talks to Andrew Neil, who swore up and down on Friday that the deal was done, and continues to swear up and down despite denials from both parties.

Meet Brad Greenspan, the 34-year-old L.A. player who won't be the next owner of Dow Jones but, since there's not a lot of other news going on concerning Rupert Murdoch's close-to-inevitable takeover of the company, is probably worth a quick profile. Greenspan was a co-founder of MySpace (although, the Times reports, "there are fundamental disagreements over his role in the company, as there are over other aspects of his career") and objected to News Corp.'s acquisition of the social networking site, claiming (presciently) that the company was worth far more than the bid accepted. Greenspan's something of a character, and even though My Cock has a better chance of buying the Wall Street Journal than he does (it's bidding $63 a share with guarantees of balls-off full editorial independence policy), there's something fairly charming about his cranky episodes.

The Times examines the agreement between Rupert Murdoch and the Dow Jones board to protect the editorial independence of the Wall Street Journal: News Corp. would need the committee's approval to hire or fire editors. News Corp. and Dow Jones will jointly select the board's founding members, who would in turn choose future members.

Pretty great Rupert Murdoch profile in this week's Time. Former Fortune managing editor Eric Pooley caught the mogul in action as negotiations with the Dow Jones board over editorial independence for the Wall Street Journal were being conducted. Here's why the News Corp. head usually gets what he wants:

On Friday, the Dow Jones board gave News Corp. its proposal to safeguard the editorial independence of the Wall Street Journal; News Corp. "reacted coolly," and responded yesterday with "a significantly altered draft." News Corp.'s version offers a 15-member board, with one seat for the Bancrofts and five members appointed independently. The board would have no authority over the hiring or firing of personnel including the WSJs publisher. Nevertheless, the two sides are supposedly close to agreement, according to an insider who stipulates that "a deal between Mr. Murdoch and the Bancrofts' advisers did not mean that either the Dow Jones board or the family, which controls 64 percent of the shareholder votes, would approve the arrangement."

Still more Dow Jones action! The big news: The board, "frustrated with the pace of the Bancroft family's negotiations with News Corp., said it would take over talks on the future of the company." This is viewed as a sign that Rupert Murdoch is going to get what he wants: "Because the Dow Jones board is obliged to pursue the best result for all shareholders, the handoff makes the $5-billion offer from Murdoch's News Corp. harder to beat for potential rivals."

General Electric is in talks with Pearson, publisher of the Financial Times to present an opposing bid to News Corp.'s offer for Dow Jones. The attempt to thwart Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the Wall Street Journal may involve "the Bancroft family retaining a 20 per cent stake in Dow Jones, with the remainder held by Pearson and GE, thus continuing the family's involvement with a company the family has controlled for more than a century." While the bid seems unlikely (Murdoch's $5 billion offer is more than a third of Pearson's total market capitalization), it makes strategic sense: G.E. owns CNBC, which will face a strong challenge from News Corp.'s imminent Fox News Channel, and a resurgent WSJ can only hurt the FT.

There's something about Rupert Murdoch's bid for Dow Jones that makes it irresistible for columnists and media observers to engage in tortured literary analogies. On Friday, HuffPo's Jason Linkins compared the news that the Bancroft family would meet with the man who was bidding for their property to a Tennessee Williams play; this morning, David Carr sees it as something out of a Jane Austen novel. (It's kind of understandable: Recall that on the day the offer was announced, the New York Observer saw the deal as Dickens' Marley, dead to start with.) Still, we think there's a more apt analogy that everyone's missing: This story is pretty much exactly what Public Enemy described in "You're Gonna Get Yours," the lead cut from their 1987 major-label debut, Yo! Bum Rush The Show.

The Bancroft family, which holds the controlling interest in Dow Jones, has decided to meet with their hungry suitor, News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch. The family (or "The Family," as they put it; very Godfather) issued a statement that says that over some metaphorical linguine, they've perhaps come to find the offer attractive.

Dow Jones shares rose four percent on news that the Bancroft family was meeting to discuss Rupert Murdoch's offer for the company, but comments from one member of the clan (who is also on the board) may cause concern. The Wall Street Journal reports that Christopher Bancroft—who did not attend the meeting—feels that Murdoch would compromise the paper's independence. ""Why would I risk that? I'm open to any situation that benefits The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones and its shareholders. At the moment, I don't see anything that would do that." The Journal sees this as a sign that the deal might not go through:

"Tuesday," reports the Wall Street Journal, "Richard F. Zannino, the chief executive of Dow Jones, sent a note to employees saying the intense coverage of the News Corp. offer 'is finally showing signs of abating as there have been no significant new developments in recent days.'" That came, of course, in the wake of a couple of analysts' suggestion that Murdoch was going to walk away from his bid for the company. Whether or not you believe the prediction is at all credible, it did manage to briefly drive down Dow Jones' stock price, although shares rose again yesterday. The Journal also notes that the Bancroft family will meet in private today to discuss their options: "Some members of the clan believe the family should explore the matter further and look into possible alternatives to Mr. Murdoch's offer." Hopefully, they haven't heard about Murdoch's planned "multimillion-pound budget cuts... expected across News International's four titles after a fall in profits," which have already seen senior staffers departing those papers.

With little of note happening in what Times business columnist Joe Nocera referred to on Saturday as the "Mr. Murdoch Lusts After Dow Jones" story, the papers are forced to manufacture another angle from which to analyze the bid: Specifically, how will Friday's Page Six Payola revelations affect Murdoch's chances of wooing the Bancrofts? On the heels of a 1,300 word front-pager in Saturday's Times recounting the scandal—for which the paper was forced to reel back in former gossip-boy and current theater reporter Campbell Robertson—comes today's David Carr follow-exegesis. Carr believes that the decision to run the allegations in the Post itself can be traced to Post editor (and alleged stripper-sex receiver) Col Allan's unwillingness to get scooped by the News. Uberflack Howard Rubenstein also says that the Post wanted to get their spin on the story before anyone else did. Carr's column ends with a thought exercise!

We're at the epistolary stage of the Dow Jones story: Rupert Murdoch sent a letter to members of the Bancroft family offering them "a seat on News Corp.'s board and pledging to safeguard the editorial integrity of The Wall Street Journal and other Dow Jones editorial properties." The letter promoted Murdoch as a family man (well, he does have three) with a passion for newspapers. The Bancrofts—about 80 per cent of whom "rejected Mr Murdoch's $60-per-share bid two weeks ago"—seem unimpressed, although there remains a faction that wants to meet with him. The Guardian notes that Murdoch's offer to set up an independent board for the Journal mirrors a promise he made when he purchased the Times of London years ago; that board since "has long been disbanded."

Today in the "Rupert Murdoch wants Dow Jones" story that will not die: Apart from the aforementioned Wall Street Journal profile of the Bancroft family—who, you'll recall, have a controlling interest in Dow Jones—there's a Tim Arango piece in Fortune that examines how the family's lust for dividends has "starved Dow Jones of capital to grow its business. Arango suggests that Rupert Murdoch could convince Dow Jones' independent directors to reduce those dividend payouts, forcing the Bancrofts' hand.

Today in the greatest story that isn't! Dow Jones shares took a giant tumble yesterday amid speculation that Rupert Murdoch won't go any higher than his $60-a-share offer for the company. News Corp. shares, on the other hand, rose 6.2%, mainly because of profits from that movie where Ben Stiller is out-acted by a CGI Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. The Wall Street Journal suggests that the proposed merger between Thomson and Reuters "risks putting Dow Jones Newswires at a disadvantage compared with larger rivals, in particular a combined Reuters-Thomson," which will effect the way Dow Jones shareholders evaluate the bid.

While DealBreaker may think that the "Rupert Murdoch desires Dow Jones" story has burned itself out in an orgy of navel-gazing and media self-obsession, well, there's nothing that excites us more! So let's have a quick recap of what people are saying today. The Times looks at the insider trading suit filed yesterday and notes that Dow Jones is "conducting an internal investigation into the actions of David K. P. Li, who is a longtime [Dow] director and a banker in Asia, people involved in the situation said." The Guardian suggests that, whatever the outcome of the proposed takeover, it has caused investors to reevaluate the worth of media properties. The Observer covers the letter-writing campaign from anxious staffers to the Bancroft family and offers an incredibly handy guide to the family itself.

Slightly quiet on the "Rupert Murdoch craves Dow Jones" front. Still, today we learn that editors at the Wall Street Journal knew of the bid at least a week before it came out, but said nothing, and were thus beaten to the story by CNBC. The decision to sit on the story, says the Times "raises a nettlesome issue for the media: What are a news organization's obligations to report important market-moving news about itself or its parent company before the news is officially disclosed?" Ooh, nettlesome. Harsh words! Better—perhaps someone took advantage of the information for some money-making trading! Hello, SEC!

It's next week already, and dark lord Rupert Murdoch still craves Dow Jones. On Friday, the first shareholder, a minor one, filed suit against the standing-firm Bancroft family for not considering the Murdoch offer: That shareholder is a whiny little bitch from New Jersey and we imagine that claim will be thrown out faster than a cat litter box full of rotten squid. But how are the real players doing?

It's a fairly slow Murdoch-Dow Jones news day, even though we're only in day four of the friendly proposed takeover standoff. The biggest item of the day is a New York Times interview with Rupert Murdoch himself. Reading from notes at times, Murdoch says he would leave current Journal staff in place, he just wants to meet with the Bancroft family, he would be a hands-off owner, if the deal goes through he would insert the word "Journal" into the name of his Fox Business Journal, and that long stories in the paper bore him. (We sympathize.)

Today in the world's most important story: The Dow Jones board of directors chose to take no action on Murdoch's bid for their company. A voting majority oppose accepting the offer. Or do they really? Divisions in the three branches of the Bancroft family, combined with the amount News Corp. is willing to pay, may make it an offer they can't refuse. At least a few folks claim they literally may not have a choice: "a case for litigation" could be made should they turn down the bid. (Well, sorta maybe not so much, but maybe!)