OLD Media Moves

Former WSJ reporter: Rupert's not getting my shares

May 2, 2007

Posted by Chris Roush

Roy Harris, a senior editor at CFO magazine, writes on its blog that News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch won’t get any of the shares in Dow Jones & Co. that he owns from working as a journalist at The Wall Street Journal.

Roy HarrisHarris wrote, “I had to work for my 800 shares — 23 years as a Wall Street Journal scribe, diligently saving through the stock purchase plan, with its 15 percent discount.

“Like the Bancrofts and most other WSJ readers, I have, well, concerns about the quality of Journal coverage were it in the hands of the press baron who runs Fox News and the New York Post. And the Bancrofts and I must balance those concerns against the hefty premium that $60 represents.

“Then there’s the possibility that a less objectionable pair of deep pockets can be found. Or is there? In 36 years of reporting on business, I don’t think I’ve ever seen more divergent opinions on that question.”

Read more here. Harris, once deputy chief of the Journal’s Los Angeles bureau, said that he considered owning Dow Jones shares a “donation to good journalism.”

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