Earlier this morning, a British financial magazine reported that Rupert Murdoch had finally succeeded in his bid to purchase Dow Jones for the sum of $5 million.

But before we could start celebrating (Break out the champagne! Finally, an excuse to stop covering the Most Boring Story Ever!) E&P reported that the deal was not, in fact, finalized and quoted a Dow Jones spokesperson as saying negotiations (between Dow Jones & Co. and News Corp.) were still underway.

'Noooooooo!' we cried, as we struggled to re-cork a bottle of extremely expensive Moet champagne. And while it proved to be too late to salvage the bubbly [Ed: Oh, whatever, like anyone's reading us today, anyway] we exited the "Huzzah! No More Rupert!" bliss phase and entered into a full-fledged "OMG, What If It's Not Over??" panic.

'Haha,' we giggled nervously. 'It's totally over,' we reassured ourselves with the deluded certainty of a crazyperson. 'Of course it is. There's no way this boring finance saga is still going on.'

Except, as it turns out, we were wrong.

Because now Dow Jones has issued this official (and surprisingly pithy) denial.

NEW YORK, July 6, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) — An article published on Thebusinessonline.com this morning stating that an agreement in
principle has been reached for the sale of Dow Jones & Company to News Corp is incorrect.

Which, unfortunately, is their perfunctory way of saying 'it ain't over till it's over.'

And suddenly, we're kind of needing an early-afternoon cocktail again…