GE, Microsoft Look To Out-Murdoch News Corp

News Corp.'s bid to buy Dow Jones, and by default, the most influential financial newspaper in the world, the Wall Street Journal, seems to have spooked media rival General Electric into making a bid for the company as well.

Both GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt and a spokesman have downplayed the news, with the spinman calling the exchange with the Bancroft family "exploratory conversations" that turned up fruitless, and Immelt denying that print media was anything that would be on GE's radar.

However, before these words there was, according to the