This was unexpected: The Bancroft family has reversed course and says it will consider selling Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. This is a major development for a property that is intimately familiar to many of you. Like it or not, the paper provided fair and strong coverage of the financial world. After flat-out refusing to talk--we wondered then how long it could hold out--the family says it is now willing to meet. The announcement seems to suggest that the family is quite willing to entertain offers from others. There are many who hope that another bidder emerges, one with journalistic instincts a little more in tune with the Journal's. Bloomberg has been mentioned, but so has General Electric and others.

For more:
- here's a New York Times article