The Wall Street Journal entered a gray area of journalism on Monday when it ran a story about parent Dow Jones & Co. putting six of its community newspapers on the auction block. The New York media company used most of its major news outlets to broadcast its intentions of selling six of its Ottaway Community Newspapers' 15 daily papers. In addition to appearing in the Journal, the news appeared on MarketWatch.com and its wire services. Interestingly, other leading business news sources — such as The New York Times, The Financial Times and, of course, The Deal — did not have the same news until after Dow Jones-owned sources reported on it. Other newspapers such as the Detroit Free Press and Houston Chronicle posted the news to their Web sites, but wisely chose to use competing wire services rather than Dow Jones wire copy. The six papers, which are in Danbury, Conn.; Oneonta and Plattsburg, N.Y.; Santa Cruz, Calif.; Sunbury, Pa.; and Traverse City, Mich., are expected to fetch about $300 million, according to the Journal's story. The $300 million is inferred from an unnamed source, who happened to tell the Journal that the papers "produce roughly $25 million in Ebitda." Interestingly, the MarketWatch story didn't provide the expected sale price or the earnings info of the six papers. Of course, today's news is not the first time the Journal has crossed into a fuzzy area of journalism. The paper regularly writes about its parent, but most of the time the items are earnings reports that are buried deep inside the paper. In addition, earlier this year a number of Knight Ridder-owned newspapers aggressively reported on the sale of its parent.—Matthew Wurtzel
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