Getting Murdoch to Bid Against Himself

One of the iron rules of negotiation is that it takes more than one buyer to raise the price. For a week now, in the final stages of capitulating to Rupert Murdoch, the owners of Dow Jones have been trying to use their reluctance as a lever to get him to up his offer.

No sale. Conning the most relentless media acquirer of our age is a waste of time, especially when his bad reputation is your only tool. Murdoch has stood fast, and now the deal is back on track, if the soon-to-be-his Wall Street Journal has got it right.

But in an act of largesse, Murdoch will leave the Bancroft family a tip by picking up the $30 million tab of their advisers on the deal.