It’s not hard to find fables, fiction and clichés to add some literary spice to the story of Rupert Murdoch’s $5 billion bid to separate the Bancroft family from its crown jewel, Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co.

The one that leapt to the minds of the folks over at Columbia Journalism Review is the story of the frog and the scorpion. Abridged version:

- Scorpion needs frog to carry him across the river.

- Frog says, “Are you nuts? You’ll sting me.” Scorpion says, “Then we both drown. Why would I do that?” Frog says, “Good point.”

- Scorpion stings the frog halfway across the river. They drown. Just before, frog says, “Uh… dude.” Scorpion replies: “Sorry, man, it’s my nature.”

CJR explains: “For our purpose here the frog is the Bancroft family and the scorpion is the charming Rupert Murdoch, who would very much like to own the Bancrofts’ shares in Dow Jones & Company and its jewel, The Wall Street Journal. Family members sensibly fear that he would misuse that paper’s journalistic power. Murdoch’s answer is that to damage the credibility of the Journal would be to destroy it. Why would he do such a thing?”

And: “[Murdoch] has a record that proves that once he had some control he would readily find a way to sacrifice the Journal on the News Corp. altar. It’s his nature.”

If you think about it, part of why many shareholders would like a sale is because they’d probably not see Dow Jones hit $60 share in the near future without Murdoch. That, experts say, has a lot to do with Dow Jones management being slow in its efforts to adjust to changes buffeting the journalism world.

There’s an adage for that: A stitch in time saves nine.

Photo (Reuters): Jiang Musheng, a 66-year-old resident, eats a live tree frog for medicinal reasons at a village in Shangrao, in eastern China’s Jiangxi province in a May 21, 2007 picture