10 Stories You Won't Read About Dow Jones' Merger Missteps

I keep thinking about what The Wall Street Journal would write about the following company's takeover trials.

1. The company gets the takeover bid and the senior officers sit on the bid and disclose it to no one as the stock goes up, making it likely that there will be trading on inside information. That's why the law wants timely dispersal of material information. Can you imagine the field day the Journal would have with that?

2. There's an incredible amount of call-buying after the receipt of the bid -- but before it is announced as a scoop, no less. Who knows how long the company in question would have sat on it?

3. The board turns out to be a total nonentity and doesn't even take a position on the bid. Can you imagine what the Journal's reporters and editors would do with that?

4. The controlling shareholder family's spokespeople, before the bid is even cold, say the word is "no." Without even polling the family? Can you get more duplicitous? The polling turns out to be wrong.

5. The scion of a subsidiary chain without any reputation for greatness or even goodness turns out to be the most vociferous board member against the bid. (OK, by now you've figured out that I'm abstracting the Dow Jones(DJ Quote) situation with this News Corp.(NWS Quote) bid from Rupert Murdoch. Frankly, I would rather work for the worst Murdoch property than the best Ottaway paper. Nobody takes Ottaway to task for that "irony.")

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