Who is kidding who? All of the skuttlebutt over the takeover of Dow Jones is not your normal takeover. The takeover is more about who "controls" the news, rather than who reports the facts.

There is no better way to control what others think than to dominate a media empire. Ruppert Murdock knows this well, as his "fair and balanced" Fox News Channel boldly proclaims. Fox News is obviously tilted way to the right, while the opponents at CNN are tilted far to the left. Wherever your political leanings lie dicates what channel you watch. So, in reality, there is no "fair and balanced" news, one just offsets the other.

Clarence W. Barron purchased the Dow Jones & Company after the death of its co-founder Charles Dow. After Barron's death, his son-in-law, Hugh Bancroft became president of the company.

While Barron was no choir boy, he was quoted saying;

"You are in the field to defend the public interest, the financial truth for investors and the funds that should support the widow and the orphan."

Barron, was opposed to war because he knew that war was often times a means for financial gain for those who stood to profit from it. In the book, "The Audacious War" (1915), Barron wrote;

I deemed it my duty to ascertain at close hand the financial factors in this war, and the financial results therefrom.

I found myself on the other side, not only in the domain of the finance encircling this war, but unexpectedly in close touch with diplomatic and government circles. The whole of the war, its commercial causes, its financial and military forces, its tremendous human sacrifices, the
conflicting principles of government, and the world-wide issues involved, all lay out in clear facts and figures after I had gathered by day and night from what appeared at first to be a tangled web.

Given the price that Ruppert Murdock is willing to pay for Dow Jones, only a fool, or a person of principle, would turn that offer down. It's no secret that Murdock and Fox News are steadfast in their support for the war in Iraq, the Republicans, and the Neoconservative agenda.

If the Bancroft Family are truly intent on preserving the principles of Clarence W. Barron, no amount of money in Ruppert Murdock's bank account will be enough.