Senior executives at the Wall Street Journal have given cautious backing to a deal between parent company Dow Jones and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation over preserving editorial independence, according to reports.
But in a statement that paves the way for a potential $5bn (£2.5bn) takeover of Dow Jones by News Corp, the executives issued a veiled warning to Mr Murdoch not to meddle with the company’s journalism.
The agreement between Dow Jones and News Corp specifically promises that Marcus Brauchli, managing editor of the Journal, would keep his job after a takeover.
It also promises that two other senior editorial executives, Paul Gigot, the opinion page editor, and Neal Lipschutz, editor of Dow Jones Newswires, would stay in their posts.
In a statement the three executives said they appreciated guidelines “reaffirming our principles of journalistic independence” and thanked “the Murdoch family and their colleagues at News Corp for their efforts towards an agreement to preserve these principles”.
“We also recognise the best assurances of independence are reporters and editors committed to following news where the facts lead and to expressing opinions based on consistent principles, and from owners committed to preserving their freedom to do so,” the statement said.
The agreement proposes a five-member special committee to protect the Journal’s managing editor, its editorial page editor and the managing editor of Dow Jones Newswires from interference from News Corp.
The special committee members would be chosen by mutual agreement between Dow Jones and News Corporation and would not be connected to either organisation.
It would have approval rights over the appointment and removal of the three editors.
The editors would also have “control over spending and allocation of resources within budgets set by News Corp management”. News Corp’s decisions about the size of budgets would be final.
After adjudicating any disagreement between editors and News Corp, the committee has the right to publish its findings on the Journal editorial page.
The agreement has been drawn up at the behest of the Bancroft family, which has controlled Dow Jones for a century.
However, the 35-strong family, which initially rebuffed Mr Murdoch when his interest in Dow Jones emerged earlier in the year, has yet to accept his promises of editorial independence.
“For the Bancroft family, one of the most important aspects of the structure is how ‘enforceable’ it is, according to several people close to the family,” the Journal reported today.
“Many in the family distrust Mr Murdoch and his track record at other publications, for example at the Times of London, where he hired, then fired, the top editor [Harold Evans] shortly after taking over in 1981,” the Journal reported.
