Members of the Wall Street Journal's China team have come out against Rupert Murdoch's bid to buy the newspaper's parent company Dow Jones, AFP reported. A strongly-worded letter, signed by seven of the newspaper's Pulitzer Prize-winning China staff, was sent to the Bancroft Family, which controls Dow Jones. It said: "News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has a well-documented history of making editorial decisions in order to advance his business interests in China and, indeed, of sacrificing journalistic integrity to satisfy personal or political aims. It is fair to ask how News Corp would change the Journal's coverage." The letter argued that a series of reports by Ian Johnson published in 2001 on China's brutal suppression of the Falungong spiritual movement "might never have seen the light of day" under Murdoch. It noted that Murdoch's son, James, CEO of British Sky Broadcasting, had the same year denounced Falungong as a "dangerous" and "apocalyptic cult". News Corp has offered the Bancroft family US$5 billion for Dow Jones, a 63% premium on the company's recent stock price.
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