And you thought the editorial page was conservative before....

WaPo:

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation media empire has made an unsolicited takeover bid for Dow Jones & Co., which publishes the Wall Street Journal.

The bid, first reported this morning by CNBC and confirmed by Dow Jones, is a cash offer of $60 per share, a premium of nearly twice the stock's trading value. Dow Jones stock, which closed yesterday at $36.33 per share, shot up to more than $57 in late-morning trading. With 63 million shares of Dow Jones stock outstanding, Murdoch's bid would be worth at least $3.8 billion.

The News Corp. bid came two weeks ago in a letter to Dow Jones's board, the company said in a statement. Like The Washington Post Co. and the New York Times Co., Dow Jones has a dual-class ownership structure that allows the Bancroft family, longtime owners, to control the company while holding a minority of the stock. News Corp. has offered to buy all outstanding shares of Dow Jones's common stock.

ABC News:

Steve Yount, president of the union and representing 2,000 reporters and other employees at Dow Jones, called ownership by Murdoch "a disaster," particularly for The Wall Street Journal.

"This is a premier publication and everything that News Corp. brings to the table runs the risk of tarnishing that reputation," said Yount.

Ya think?