News Corp. Deal with Dow Jones Got Too Much Ink

By Chris Roush
August 6, 2007

News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch's $5 billion agreement to acquire Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Marketwatch and Dow Jones Newswires, signals a glaring problem with business journalism today.

No, I'm not talking about what Murdoch may do to The Journal -- the fears that those on the paper's staff and outside have been expressing for the past three months.

What I am talking about is the excessive coverage that was given a $5 billion deal in newspapers here and around the world, and on television and radio.

The deal did typify the turmoil going on in newspapers and it dealt with the crown jewel of business journalism coverage. It also involved the intrigue of a disheveled family-owned business up against a shrewd corporatist like Murdoch.

But looking at the size of this deal compared to other recent acquisitions -- or IPOs -- then the negotiations by the Bancroft family and everyone else involved with this deal got way too much ink.

Why did that happen? The popular theory is that the media pays more attention to stories involving its own industry. And I would be inclined to agree. It's the easier story to write because business journalists know how to explain the business to readers.

The story was also covered so comprehensively that it probably turned many readers off. Do they really want to know about the hat that Christopher Bancroft was wearing when the family met to decide the fate of the company, or that family members ate stale pastries at the meeting?

I'd argue that they don't, and I'd argue that the 25 deals that have been announced so far this year with a value of more than $10 billion -- or twice the size of the Dow Jones acquisition -- have not been covered with the same aggressiveness and attention. And that includes another deal that affects business journalism -- the deal between Reuters and Thomson.

This happens because business journalists follow the pack mentality, probably even worse than political reporters. If the New York Times and Journal are writing this story, then they need to as well.

But as business journalists, we need to step back from the story every once in a while and ask ourselves if we're giving the readers what they really want. I've tried to keep up with the Murdoch/WSJ every single day, and I'm now suffering from serious MEGO disease.

That stands for My Eyes Glaze Over. I feel as if I have read the same story a hundred times without it being advanced.