Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

Warren Buffett Media Company may take over Dow, Jones!

What happened to that company is a story of unimaginable catastrophe, and though I hold the Journals in low regard for their Certs (or unlobotomized schizophrenic) view of the news, the company's still a big force, and should be, testimony to the grand human spirit of perseverance. But the company thought the way to redo its biz was to give the Journals a facelift, and that didn't work because they didn't need it, it was their Skull-and-Bones-exclusive Web site. I don't know how to fix the Journals other than to have them give up Certs, but do that and Al Hunt or Paul Gigot throws a tantrum to end all tantrums (though the news hacks will only hear that overexposed punditface Hunt out, natch), and there's blood on the floor an inch thick. The next best step is to fix the Internet approach: stop charging for the news, and instead start a premium-priced real-time subscription service based solely on statistics that would be to the Web what the Bloomberg Box is to stock brokerages, with an emphasis on broadband customers. That would bring ad revenues into the Journals in droves, plus you could make bigger bucks dispensing financial stats. Without boldness I see more floundering, as Dow, Jones has done for years.