Buffett: Dow Jones Bid Not High

"I couldn't do it for Berkshire," Buffett said, citing an unwillingness to make investments for Berkshire shareholders that don't make pure economic sense. "I don't do anything for Berkshire that's un-economic. I do some things for myself that aren't economic."

He acknowledged that while Dow Jones does have some synergies with the rest of News Corp.'s portfolio from a business standpoint, there is an appeal to any potential buyer that goes beyond economics given The Journal's stature.

"There are people around the world who would salivate at buying The Wall Street Journal, and they have big checkbooks," said Buffett.

At Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders' meeting over the weekend, Buffett defended Dow Jones' dual-class share structure -- a setup that is also employed by Berkshire, as well as companies like Washington Post, New York Times (NYT Quote), Google (GOOG Quote) and News Corp.

The dual-class structure, which allows business owners to sell shares of their companies to the public without surrendering voting control, has come under fire at Dow Jones and its newspaper counterpart, New York Times. Both have refused to sell assets to deep-pocketed buyers, denying short-term gains to shareholders that are getting nervous about the future of newspaper publishing.

For its part, the Times has been criticized by Morgan Stanley Investments portfolio manager Hassan Elmasry as being unaccountable to shareholders due to its corporate structure and misusing its capital as a result.