Forget Murdoch: Yahoo! Should Buy Dow Jones

This column was originally published on RealMoney on May 8 at 9:40 a.m. EDT. It's being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com readers. For more information about subscribing to RealMoney, please click here.

The media spent the weekend all abuzz over Rupert Murdoch's bold $5 billion bid for Dow Jones(DJ Quote). The synergies between the Wall Street Journal and News Corp.'s(NWS Quote) pending Fox Business Channel makes obvious sense. And despite the pre-existing agreement between Dow Jones and General Electric's(GE Quote) CNBC unit, it would certainly rattle the execs at NBC Universal (GE's media division) -- something you suspect Murdoch might enjoy.

A parallel story line was the resurrection of the Microsoft(MSFT Quote) acquiring Yahoo!(YHOO Quote) rumor that has been around for years. I do not see that as a winning combination. The vast majority of Microsoft's profits come from Office and Windows (Vista), followed by Database SQL. The company's Web properties do not contribute a whole lot to the bottom line.

Then on Monday these two separate M&A stories serendipitously came together when a few subscription-only Barron's columns "accidentally" showed up on the free Yahoo! Finance section. Which got me thinking ... ...