NEWS CORP SEES ITS STOCK SINK — AND THAT’S A GOOD THING

News Corp today did what several media analysts — and reportedly several of its own board members — have been urging it to do rather than buying the additional shares of BSkyB that it doesn’t already own: buy back its own stock instead. The company, which reportedly sits on a mountain of cash, announced plans to repurchase an additional $5 billion of its shares over the next year. Ironically, this may be a particularly good time for such a buyback strategy. Shares in the company have dropped more than 11 percent during the past two days amid the continued scandal affecting News Corp’s British newspapers in general and its now-defunct News of the World in particular. The loss-making performance of News International, News Corp’s group of London newspapers, has continued to be the only drag in the company’s otherwise healthy media family, which includes 20th Century Fox, Fox Broadcasting, the Fox cable channels, the Australian newspaper, and Harper-Collins Publishing.