Dow Jones, the owner of The Wall Street Journal, is making one final push to find an alternative buyer to News Corporation, according to a report in the business daily this morning.

The move, in part designed to appease members of Dow Jones’s controlling Bancroft family, who are yet to endorse a takeover, comes as Dow Jones continues to hold talks with News Corp, which is the parent company of Times Online.

News Corp has offered $5 billion for the publisher of the Journal, an asset long-coveted by Rupert Murdoch, the News Corp chairman and chief executive.

Members of the Bancroft family, including Leslie Hill, a Dow Jones director, are said to be frustrated with the failure to find alternative bidders to Mr Murdoch. Those concerns are set against wider disquiet among some Journal staff over implications for the title’s editorial independence as part of the Murdoch stable.

The Bancroft family owns nearly two thirds of Dow Jones’s voting shares and are thought to be deeply divided.

The push to find an alternative suitor could also be aimed at bettering Dow Jones’s bargaining position with News Corp, the Journal suggested.

Tomorrow, part of the Dow Jones board is expected to meet with Ron Burkle, the supermarket tycoon, who has indicated he could be willing to form an alternative bid with the Dow Jones union.

Other interested parties include Brad Greenspan, a co-founder of MySpace, who is leading an investor group that is proposing to buy part of Dow Jones at $60 a share – the same level as the News Corp bid – and invest an additional $250 million. Mr Greenspan will pitch his proposals to members of the Bancroft family tomorrow.

According to the Journal, he is proposing to buy up to half the company as part of a scheme that would also involve a share buy-back and bring on board EchoStar Communications, the satellite television broadcaster.

News Corporation, parent company of The Times, and Dow Jones yesterday reached agreement on mechanisms to safeguard editorial independence, opening the way for a takeover of the publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

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