The issue of “editorial independence” — and potentially some unwelcome advice on that topic from a federal agency — appears to be standing in the way of a News Corp. buyout of Dow Jones.

Rupert Murdoch’s offer of $60 a share represents a 67% premium over Dow Jones’s share price at the time of the bid, in April. To acquire a press and broadcasting asset such as Dow Jones — which includes the Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Factiva, Dow Jones Newswires, Barron’s, and the Dow Jones Indexes — at a substantial premium over market prices is a bold move in the best of times; it is a particularly heroic move in 2007.

The print newspaper industry is, euphemistically speaking, declining. Readership falls, and advertising with it. A younger generation reads its news online, in real time, 24 hours a day.

After the Murdoch offer, Dow Jones’s stock price increased more than 50%, and it remains in the upper $50s. But the Bancroft family has controlled Dow Jones for many decades, and their stock represents 52% of the company’s overall voting power. Waiting for other offers and publicly expressing concern over editorial independence, particularly of the venerable Wall Street Journal, the Bancroft family said no to the offer.

Now, 10 weeks after the Murdoch offer, no one has publicly offered a competing bid for Dow Jones. Only a visionary such as Mr. Murdoch could see in Dow Jones more than a collection of venerable but doomed publications. A host of other potential bidders appears to believe that Mr. Murdoch is simply overpaying.

Recently, the board of directors of Dow Jones took over the negotiations with Mr. Murdoch. From the outside, creating a structure to ensure editorial independence appears to be at the core of the negotiations. No doubt, some financial terms are also close to the heart of the matter.

Editorial independence is an issue tied to long-term principles of the Bancroft family. If the purchaser were Mayor Bloomberg, Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey, Vice President Gore, Bill Gates, or any one of dozens of other famous and wealthy individuals who conceivably could lead an effort to purchase Dow Jones, the Bancroft family would likely insist equally strenuously on editorial independence.

Mr. Murdoch is distinguished from most potential purchasers not by his views or management style but by an idiosyncrasy of a bygone era: Mr. Murdoch’s company News Corp. owns a broadcast station in New York City. Curiously, General Electric, a rumored interested party in bidding for Dow Jones, quietly bowed out.

To the federal government, owning a newspaper potentially makes one unfit to own a broadcast station. Almost anyone can own a newspaper in America, even hostile foreign powers and thugs. The First Amendment appears to apply to practically everyone except broadcasters, and thus Mr. Murdoch. Under FCC rules promulgated during the Watergate era without even a fig leaf of statutory authority, broadcast licensees cannot own a newspaper in the same geographic market. Bad rules, once on the books, tend to stick around a long time.

The FCC has in the past granted waivers to these cross-ownership rules. But those waivers are increasingly under attack. Last month, the United Church of Christ and the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH asked the FCC to deny extensions of waivers that permit News Corp. to own both WNYW-5 and WWORTV while owning the New York Post as well. Acquisition of Dow Jones would add further attention to retaining News Corp.’s waivers in New York City. Rev. Jackson and Mr. Murdoch do not appear to be close friends.

“Editorial independence” is one of the code phrases in the FCC’s press and broadcast ownership rules that limit ownership of newspapers. News Corp. may satisfy the Bancroft family with a private contract to preserve the editorial independence of the Wall Street Journal and other Dow Jones assets, but a future FCC may yet try to alter the deal by applying the newspaper cross-ownership rule, all in the government-invoked name of “editorial independence.”

Editorial independence is largely in the eye of the beholder. Private parties such as the Bancrofts can use mutually agreeable contracts to reach editorial independence. The government, however, is more likely to exercise regulatory powers to reach its view of editorial independence, an outcome almost certainly bereft of editorial content or independence.

A former FCC commissioner, Mr. Furchtgott-Roth is president of Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises. He can be reached at hfr@furchtgott-roth.com.