The REAL reason the Bancrofts lost Dow Jones

If you care about business news, you know by now that Rupert Murdoch has won control of the Wall Street Journal.

What you probably don't know is that even though the Journal had been thought of as a great family-controlled paper, along with the Sulzbergers' New York Times and the Grahams' Washington Post, the Bancrofts had largely checked out long ago.

Here's the deal. In 1986, Dow Jones & Co., the Journal's owner, issued a new class of stock designed to give the Bancrofts permanent control. You can argue about whether that's a good thing, though I like it when it comes to journalism companies. (In fact, my biggest single-company investment is the Washington Post Co., my employer until I joined Fortune.)

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