The News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, and advisers for Dow Jones and its controlling Bancroft family were close last night to agreeing on terms designed to protect The Wall Street Journal’s newsroom independence if the company accepts a takeover bid from Mr. Murdoch, according to several people briefed on the talks.

However, these people cautioned that a deal between Mr. Murdoch and the Bancrofts’ advisers did not mean that either the Dow Jones board or the family, which controls 64 percent of the shareholder votes, would approve the arrangement.

If an agreement on newsroom independence were to be made by the Dow Jones board, the News Corporation and the Bancroft family, the only barrier standing in the way of Mr. Murdoch’s control of The Wall Street Journal would be the selling price.

Mr. Murdoch has offered $60 a share for Dow Jones, which he has long wanted to add to his global media empire, and promises that he will not meddle in the news pages. But the Bancroft family, which has controlled the company for more than 100 years, is wary of his reputation for sensationalism and for interfering in the news operations of his media companies for his own political or financial ends.

Probably not....just another newspaper that is being officially taken over by the Murdoch Blob.

The Times notes other payouts by Murdoch's publishing arm to major politicians -- $4.5 million to Newt Gingrich, $25,000 to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), $142,000 to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) -- all of whom sit on the Commerce or Judiciary Committees overseeing the media business.

Still, the paper leaves the door open for Murdoch.

A former HarperCollins executive told the Times, “It’s not done in a direct way where he issues instructions. It’s a bunch of people running around trying to please him.”

Bill Moyers will inveigh Friday, in a video essay released early by PBS to RAW STORY, against Rupert Murdoch and his bid to purchase the Wall Street Journal. [/b]

"Rupert Murdoch is no saint," says Moyers of the Fox News owner. "He is to propriety what the Marquis de Sade was to chastity. When it comes to money and power, he's carnivorous, all appetite and no taste. He'll eat anything in his path"

Moyers speaks further about Murdoch's ability to win over politicians, complaining, "Now Bill and Hillary Clinton, who know on which side their bread is buttered, like having it slathered by their new buddy, Rupert. Our media and political system has turned into a mutual protection racket."

"But the problem isn't just Rupert Murdoch," concludes Moyers. "His pursuit of the Wall Street Journal is the latest in a cascading series of mergers, buyouts, and other financial legerdemain that are making a shipwreck of journalism. ... Murdoch just the predator of the hour."

Paul Krugman's subscription-only Thursday column for the New York Times discusses the same issue, pointing out that in a 2003 poll on erroneous beliefs about the Iraq War, "two-thirds of Fox devotees believed that the United States had 'found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al-Qaida terrorist organization.'