When an unsolicited bidder is on a charm offensive, nobody expects complete consistency of argument. But Rupert Murdoch's pitch to shareholders of Dow Jones doesn't make much sense.

On the one hand, the media baron flatters the editorial pride of the Wall Street Journal, the business newspaper that is the crown jewel of Dow Jones, the group for which the News Corporation boss has offered $5bn. "It has great journalists which deserve, I think, a much wider audience."

A nice sentiment, but Murdoch, in his TV interview on Fox News yesterday, followed up by praising the subscription model of the Wall Street Journal's online edition. "The great thing [about] financial journalism and high-quality journalism is that you can charge for it."

The contradiction? It is precisely because the Journal charges readers that it has become increasingly irrelevant to online discussion about business. As long as the Journal's management, and Rupert Murdoch, still believe financial news is so precious, that wider audience will go, not to the prestigious business newspaper, but to free-access competitors such as Yahoo, and a host of new finance blogs.

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