Is Burkle the dark horse?

Fortune's Tim Arango reports that the L.A. billionaire is working with the Dow Jones union and "according to a source in the Burkle camp," he could go public this week with a long-shot offer for DJ that would compete with Rupert Murdoch's $5 billion bid. The source said Burkle was trying to enlist - are you sitting down for this? - Yahoo, which has gone through its own turmoil this week with Terry Semel stepping down as CEO. Burkle sits on the Yahoo board. Now before anyone takes this too seriously, it's worth remembering that Burkle made overtures for both Knight Ridder and Tribune Co. (remember Broad/Burkle?), but both efforts fell apart at the end. Badly. And for all its strategic meandering, Yahoo has never shown any interest in owning a newspaper.

Ron Burkle is certainly an unlikely journalistic white knight - this is the same fellow who relentlessly pushed for state legislation that would have kept divorce records (namely his own) from public view. But he's been a strong union supporter for years - going back to his days as owner of Ralphs - and Murdoch has been known to bust a union or two in his day. So, like, who knows? Meanwhile, there seems to be a lot more skepticism about a potential bid by General Electric and Pearson (owners of CNBC and the Financial Times, respectively). John Carney over at DealBreaker now gives the Murdoch bid an 85 percent chance of going through.