Gawker
Of all the cliques at the Wall Street Journal, the reporters and editors of the newspaper's Money & Investing team were most inclined to accommodate to the new régime put in place by Rupert Murdoch. They're more financially sophisticated than the average Journal reporter, and less precious; the head of the paper's third section is thought friendly with Murdoch aide Gary Ginsberg, and has even been mentioned as a candidate for managing editor; and Money & Investing is widely regarded as the newsiest part of the Journal, in need of less of a re-education than the self-indulgent feature writers of the main paper and the second section, Marketplace. And that's why this week's disastrous pep talk by the Australian media mogul's key lieutenant, Journal publisher Robert Thomson, is so damaging.
Robert Thomson, former editor of Murdoch's London Times, is a charmer, as we've written. (Disclosure, I used to work for him at the Financial Times.) A former colleague reported that the Times newsroom was "the happiest place to work on Fleet Street." But his emollient side was not so obviously on display at Monday's meeting: according to two attendees, Thomson berated the assembled reporters for their lack of aggression in reporting news and their arrogance. The Journal, he said, took this attitude: "If we haven't written about it, it's not news."
Now that is apparently a general complaint of Murdoch and his henchmen, who want the Journal to compete more fiercely for both political and business scoops—and the criticism not entirely unwarranted. Thomson, Australian and 30 years to the day Murdoch's junior, is the product of the more robust newsroom cultures of Sydney and London; Journal reporters are unaccustomed to such frank talk from their bosses. And all that Thomson meant to say—we understand—was that the Journal was now in an ultra-competitive world in which it had to be conscious of the challengers, old and new. Uncontroversial enough.
But his sensitive audience took his remarks the wrong way. The newspaper had just that morning published an exclusive on the gigantic $23bn bid by Mars and Warren Buffett for Wrigley, the chewing gum makers. According to one attendee, stock market reporter Jim Browning said he was "personally offended" by the suggestion that the newspaper's reporters didn't try to break news. Thomson's joke—that former managing editor Paul Steiger was extremely competitive on the softball field—failed to defuse the tension.
The Journal is still reeling after News Corporation executives pushed out Marcus Brauchli in order to install a more amenable managing editor at the paper. It has only been a week. Until the new hierarchy is clear, the staff will naturally be jumpy and quick to take offense. Murdoch's newspaper acquisition drive still makes as much sense as we thought a week ago. However, if News Corporation can't even win over the potential collaborators, the occupation of the Journal will be all the more bitter. The infighting is already pretty ugly.
-
Nik Deogun, the head of Money & Investing and widely seen as a potential quisling, is now telling colleagues he's not in line for the managing editor job. Some of his more fevered internal critics thought they detected glee on the day Marcus Brauchli's departure became public. -
Paul Steiger and Marcus Brauchli, the last two managing editors of the independent Journal, have taken the brunt of newsroom anger. "Steiger who is being villified for advocating the sale to Murdoch when he had so much to gain from it. This guy was beloved and now is being talked about like a greedy bastard who is no different than the Wall Street guys brought down on his watch. People are talking about how he who sold out so he could afford his young 30-something wife." (Here's her bosom-revealing blog.) - Kathryn Kranhold, the Journal's much-respected reporter on GE, has quit with no new job in the offing. "It's a huge loss," says a colleague.
- Bill Grueskin, deputy managing editor, has commissioned an investigative piece on the eviction of Marcus Brauchli—and the special committee that was supposed to protect the Journal's editorial independence from Murdoch. (In charge is Steve Stecklow, one of the paper's most rabid investigative reporters.) But ungenerous colleagues suspect his position is vulnerable, and Grueskin is merely casting himself as a defender of the Journal's integrity, and a martyr.
- John Bussey, the DC bureau chief, is touted by allies as a candidate for the top editorial job. But he must be one of the most widely disliked executives at the paper: since we mentioned his name, the hostile tips have outnumbered the plaudits by about 2 to 1. More on Bussey later.
- Alix Freedman, supposed guardian of the Journal's ethics, was forced to explain to a group of new employees why she had killed the newspaper's exclusive on the ouster of Brauchli. At the orientation, she explained that the paper didn't like to air its "dirty laundry". Um, isn't that what newspapers are supposed to do?
Comments
Now this is some serious, almost scholarly, gossip. Great reading and great work, Nick.
Sigh. I know so many good people there. This sucks for them.
This is a whole lot of awesome. Seriously - you could, and should, write a book on this when all the ashes have settled.
@McCheeburger: I'll second that.
What does he mean the Journal isn't aggressive at going after the big stories? As far as I could tell, they scooped everyone on the existence of the Bear Stearns lacrosse team.
@lawyergay: Ha. You know, one of the guys quoted in that article was fired from Lehman that day.
Best one in the series to date.
Bravo, Nick.
@Sideline Reporter: Really? I'm sure he's already leveraged, securitized and/or bro-hugged his way over to Goldman by now.
@Maggie: third
real reporting and writing ... wow
it sounds like howell raines and raising the metabolism part deux; does he have a black nursemaid nanny in his past to win a pulitzer for writing about?
"General Robert E. Lee pulled in to Lower Manhattan today..."
Thompson talked to the DC buru on Monday a.m. by phone and I heard it wasn't badly received by reporters. He didn't show much leg on what they have planned for a new ME in terms of timing etc., but he talked about revamping the page one proposal process, which has always been a bitch.
when finger pointing and personal offense and people quitting become the order of the day - not newsgathering - then the center cannot hold
@howdydoo: mere anarchy to come no doubt
(My official name is "Grandma Wendy" to distinguish me from the two other Grandmas.)
OMFG Wendy allows that ancient beast to stick her with his peen??? Really????? That's just nauseating on so many levels. Where's my dignity, oh there it is. C'mere an gimme a hug! I love you don't ever leave me!
I bet, if polled back in the 1980s, a lot of American Communists would have wanted to take the country's most respected business newspaper and ruin it, too.
Has anyone else quit?
Waiting for Dave Kansas' name to rise up ... it will ...
Here's the view from inside the Sun King's bunker: the WSJ is over-staffed and, worse, paying absurd salaries to lazy journalists who don't produce anywhere near enough.
This is not a business model that's ever been acceptable within News. It is precisely Thomson's message, though you are right to say that being Pol Pot doesn't come naturally to him. But he knows on which side his bread is buttered, and so he'll play the executioner.
What will happen next is akin to a fat-assed Mid-Westerner joining the Semper Fi fellas in boot camp. First the purge, getting rid of the layers of fat, then re-education before the submission. What will be left: a lean, mean fighting machine. Sir, yes, sir!
If you work on the Journal and want to keep your job, I'd suggest dropping the psuedo-intellectual posturing about the grandness of the institution and start working like you deserve to be there. Harsh, but I'm afraid that's the way life is within the Empire.
John Bussey was always very nice to me.
You got it all right this time, Nick. Bravo.
The basic thing here, as you mention in passing, is the cultural clash. People at the FT (and Britain) look down on American (particularly WSJ) journalism as slow, portetuous and pretentious, self-important. From this end what the FT does is fast, unreliable, thinly sourced. Fact is both approaches have their merits. But you don't sense that Robert fully appreciates the difference, much less respects them.
For starters it's the height of arrogance and ignorance -- though par for the course for them in the past four months -- to accuse WSJ reporters of laziness (and arrogance). Sorry -- Journal reporters get their scoops the old fashioned way (mostly -- except for MnA, which tend to be handed over on platters). At the FT, the platter is pretty the only way.
To survive, Robert needs to convince his boss that it is broken and he has the solution. But the only thing he knows well is British journalism, particularly the FT. So he's applying that model to the WSJ with a heavy hammer.
The paper can be jazzed up, sure, and better on politics. But I'm not alone in doubting that American readers want a paper full of short stories about companies or countries they don't care about -- except when done properly in the old, nicely written, fleshed out WSJ feature, something that British papers don't know how to do. (When was the last FT story you read with a real person in it?) What Robert and Rupert also don't seem to realize is that the FT is basically an elite product, the WSJ a middle class as well as money-ed class paper (hence it's 2 million plus readers), and what they say they want to do would, though they don't see it that way, narrow its appeal.
This cultural clash willgo on for a while. Yet the australians didn't fully consider the unintended consequences of being so heavy-handed, so fast, with that institution -- brauchli's defenestration being just the latest thing. This is going to cost them, and the paper....
...and if anything you understate the fear and loathing toward the invaders over at WSJ HQ!
It didn't start out that way. Many more people at the Journal than has been acknowledged -- so tired of the nepotism, bad management, lack of resources in the bancroft/kann years -- were willing to give these guys the benefit of the doubt.
If Robert is as smart as they say, he'll rediscover his conciliatory side and embrace some of those wsj traditions the News Corp people seem to despise (journalistic ethics, a middle American -- not east coast class!! -- commitment to fairness and doing things right, civility...)
Robert Thomson looks like a mortician.
Their editorial page is such a sucking black hole of suckitude that I hope Newscorp turns WSJ into The Sun by year's end.
Chickens. Roost. Returning flight.
Comment on this post
Reply by EmailLogin with your username and password below. Or comment on this post via email.
Forgot your username or password? New User?