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robert thomson

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Robert Thomson Reshuffles WSJ Editors

Less than four months after he "broadened" the Wall Street Journal's Page One desk, promoting P1 editor Mike Williams to deputy managing editor and giving him oversight over investigative re porting, Journal editor Robert Thomson is again reorganizing the storied team. Williams, a pre-Thomson veteran once rumored to be in the Rupert Murdoch lieutenant's crosshairs, stays in place. But his deputy Mike Allen is moved to a new job where he will "nurture investigations" in foreign bureaus, under the title Page One Projects Editor. Allen was recently billeted to the international desk for a stint assisting another Deputy M.E., Nik Deogun, so the change isn't entirely out of left field. Moving up: Alex Martin, a Newsday veteran at the Journal just three years. Thomson's full memo on the changes is after the jump. More »

memos

WSJ Excited To Exploit Financial Catastrophe

It's the nature of the media business to take profits from the suffering of others, and coverage of the recent financial meltdown is no exception, helping to drive online traffic and (no doubt) newsstand sales. But the Wall Street Journal should be more discreet about its gloating, particularly given the newspaper will soon eject 50 of its own staff into the economic wilderness now home to the likes of Lehman Brothers. At least one Journal staffer was none too pleased to see an internal news item today headlined "Market Turmoil Provides Hook to Sell U.S. Journal in London." (It's reprinted in full after the jump.) More »

corrections

WSJ Misidentifies Canada. Twice.

This is what happens when you let an Australian-born media mogul buy an American newspaper and import his chief editor from Britain: Suddenly no one on staff can correctly identify the country to the north (for the record, it's "Canada" — just "Canada"). And to think we actually believed Robert Thomson would make the Wall Street Journal more globalist! [WSJ]

journalismism

WSJ Spies Roam Streets

Sharp-eyed readers of this morning's Wall Street Journal may notice that editor and Briton Robert Thomson has imported to the financial paper not just the starchy crispness of his old Financial Times but a dash of London's Fleet Street, as well. Read to the end of the front-pager on Lehman Brothers shopping itself and you'll find, as Daily Intelligencer did, that the Journal has truly redefined what it means by "Heard On The Street." In addition to being the title of the paper's bread-and-butter finance column, the phrase now literally describes how Journal reporters collect information. From the article: More »

journalismism

WSJ. Is Here. Let The Schatshow Begin.

The Wall Street Journal's new glossy quarterly "Modern Wealth "-themed grab for the pocketbooks of the plutocracy-in-waiting is here!!!! And…would you believe that model's "dress" was "designed" by Roland Mouret? Huh. I can think of some Project Runway rejects who might have done it better for cheap?? But, whatever, it's a fine cover, so let's get down to "business": as we've discussed previously, this magazine is a naked appeal to modern wealthy Journal readers to finally take their ad pages home and leave them toiletside. But don't get it twisted! "The eschatological angst that characterizes much of the newspaper industry does not define Dow Jones," said new managing editor Robert Thomson at a press conference this morning.* Meanwhile, silver-dollar-shaped scones and "flights" of three different types of juice (Juice?) were served and Thomson talked lots of schat on their New York Times counterpart T. More »

disasters

WSJ. Flailing Before It's Even Launched

Rupert Murdoch and his deputy Robert Thomson are eager to get the Wall Street Journal's new magazine off the ground. The publication, WSJ., is to get the Journal in on a consumer-glossy bonanza that now nets the Times' T magazine $46 million in annual revenue and helped it grow 12 percent last year. Murdoch and Thomson are so keen on this concept that they're racing ahead with WSJ. even though it was conceived under the Journal's prior owners, the Bancrofts' Dow Jones. So convinced are the News Corp. executives of the magazine's future success that, the Observer reports in today's paper, they are making staff sign a "code of conduct" to ensure they will not be swayed by the inevitable mob of overeager advertisers. But to hear one reliable inside source tell it, WSJ. will be lucky to launch without embarrassing itself on the editorial side, to say nothing of selling ads. More »

newspapers

Why The Journal Won't Fall Apart

From the New York Observer's accounting of the "diaspora" from the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, one would think the business newspaper was melting down under its new régime. The Observer's Koblin lists 24 departures and the exodus tallies with the word reaching anyone with friends at the paper: morale is so low that anonymous leaking provides one of the few sources of entertainment for the more sullen veterans. But Murdoch lieutenant Robert Thomson can take his time on newsroom surgery at the Journal; the patient isn't going anywhere. Let's put aside the fact that most of the departed reporters and editors have been pushed out, or left under the old guard, as an exasperated commenter notes. But, more importantly, even if the Journal's talents were inclined to leave, there's nowhere in today's faltering business media for them to go. More »

Breaking

Wall Street Journal: Major Editorial Shuffle

More moves at the top at the Wall Street Journal. In two memos to the staff, editor Robert Thomson announces that Deputy Managing Editor Laurie Hays is leaving the paper. He then announces the creation of a "central news desk" helmed by three new Deputy Managing Editors: Matt Murray, Mike Williams, and Nikhil Deogun. In a face-saving move, ethics editor Alix Freedman "will have expanded authority as a defender of the paper's ethical and journalistic standards," rather than being axed. Left up the air: the future of DC bureau chief John Bussey, who had been rumored to under consideration for a promotion. Full memos after the jump. More »

More FT Influence At WSJ "The Wall Street Journal has hired Financial Times journalists Thorold Barker and Liam Denning, who write the New York content for the London-based paper's popular and influential Lex column." [Guardian]