Just say no to Rupert
NEW YORK -- I was lucky enough to find myself here Monday night at the Gerald Loeb awards, the Pulitzers of business journalism. Too bad the Bancrofts of Boston couldn't have been here, too.
The family that has controlled The Wall Street Journal for a hundred years is on the brink of selling one of the world's great newspapers -- and the most important voice in business journalism -- to Rupert Murdoch. The Loebs were a timely and excellent measure of why this quiet New England family has more to lose than to gain in selling to Murdoch, a man who has grown rich and powerful by never over estimating his audience.
The Journal, as usual, dominated the Loeb awards this year. In all the newspaper had 10 finalists; The New York Times was second with six finalists. The Journal won two Loebs, including one to the Boston-based reporters who broke the story about the wide practice of companies secretly backdating option awards to top executives. It was the story of the year in business, and swept awards , including the Pulitzer Prize.
Now Murdoch, at 76, wants to buy what he has not been able to build in a lifetime. His $5 billion bid is a rich premium for Dow Jones & Co., owner of the Journal, which has made more than its share of management missteps over the years. But the Bancrofts need to ask themselves: Do they really want to be the generation that sells the Journal to a man whose contribution to American journalism is the New York Post and Fox News? Because that is who they will forever be. And they will be poorer, not richer, for it.
Fifteen years ago the Taylor family sold this newspaper to The New York Times Co. Frankly, I liked things the way they were. But if the paper had to be sold, the Taylor family understood it had a duty to find not just a buyer, but a buyer that shared its values. Given the options, Journal editors and writers would be very happy with The New York Times or The Washington Post Co. as a buyer. But it is not going to happen. Plenty of the Journal's best talent is already looking for the exits.
The Bancrofts are about to make a pact with the devil. Over the past couple of days The New York Times has spelled out in detail how Murdoch uses his media reach to promote his vast business interests, whether in Washington or in China. Fat book contracts for congressmen. Another one for Deng Xiaoping's daughter, and a sensitivity to the Beijing government that has made him "the Chinese leadership's favorite media baron," as the Times put it.
When you sell your house, you have to move out. The Bancroft family and its Boston lawyer, Michael B. Elefante of Hemenway & Barnes, are fashioning a sorry fig leaf of alleged editorial protection for the newspaper they are abandoning for their horse farm, or whatever.
See the experience of Harry Evans, the editor of The Times of London, who was forced out soon after Murdoch bought that paper in 1981. These agreements don't work over time. Whether the Bancrofts or the Taylors, you forfeit your right to a say the day you take the money. You become just people from a rich family who used to be somebody.
This much we know: The Journal is a great newspaper. The chances of Murdoch improving it are much less than the chances of him compromising it. There were no finalists from the New York Post at the Loebs.
The builder of the Journal, Clarence Barron, got his start in Boston by reporting the financial news on State Street. The Bancrofts of Boston still have time to do something really unusual, even heroic, by just telling Rupert no.
Steve Bailey, a Globe columnist, can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902. 
