Yahoo! Inc., seeking to thwart Microsoft Corp.’s $44.6 billion takeover bid, is in talks about a combination with News Corp.’s Internet assets instead, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. would get a stake in Yahoo that could be more than 20%, the newspaper said on its Web site yesterday, citing people familiar with the matter. The deal would include a cash contribution from News Corp. and a buyout firm.

An agreement would bring together Yahoo, owner of the most- visited American Web site, with News Corp.’s MySpace, the most popular social-networking site. It would allow Yahoo to remain independent, while bolstering News Corp.’s online advertising assets. Yahoo rejected the bid from Microsoft two days ago, saying the offer didn’t reflect its value.

“It could make sense in some form,” an analyst with Miller Tabak & Co. in New York, David Joyce, said in an interview. “They could gain more access to the overall ad industry on the Web this way.”

News Corp., based in New York, and Sunnyvale, Calif.- based Yahoo have spoken several times in the past 18 months about a combination, the newspaper said.

News Corp. spokeswoman Julie Henderson declined to comment. Yahoo’s board is still evaluating all its options, spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said. She declined to comment on News Corp.

The talks were reported yesterday by the blog TechCrunch, which said the investment by News Corp. and a private equity fund into Yahoo might be $15 billion.

A deal with Yahoo would mark a turnaround from Mr. Murdoch’s previous comments. On a February 4 conference call, he said News Corp. isn’t interested in buying Yahoo.