Writing your own obit

That's how Dean Starkman glumly - and probably accurately - describes this morning's full WSJ coverage of Rupert Murdoch's buyout offer. While the Journal was scooped by CNBC ysterday morning in the breaking news, it clearly offered the most comprehensive coverage of the story - not an easy task when it's your parent company in the middle of the firestorm. Starkman says there's no way that the Bancrofts are going to turn down a 67 percent premium on the DJ stock price (10-15 percent premiums are considered rich; 67 percent premiums are looney tunes).

And make no mistake: Tuesday was a black day for journalism, and an even blacker one for financial journalism. When this is over, there will be no independent publisher of the nation’s foremost—really only—watchdog of the capital markets, corporate behavior, and regulators’ conduct. Who’s going to cover News Corp.? And if I’m sitting around the Bancroft map room, having a cuppa and some scones, I am not taking much heart in News Corp.’s promises about the future. “We are a family company, too,” Rupert Murdoch said, the Journal reports. On the other hand, he said it on Fox News, a mutt of a network owned by News Corp.