Now Murdoch Finally Has THE Team He Wanted At The WSJ

Philip M. Stone May 21, 2008

It really shouldn’t have come as any big surprise that Wall Street Journal (WSJ) publisher Robert Thomson lasted just five months in the job as publisher. After all, that wasn’t the job Rupert Murdoch wanted for him – he wanted Thomson as editor. And now he is.

There had been one problem – the Journal already had an editor, Marcus Brauchli, and as part of the conditions of the Dow Jones sale, Murdoch agreed to the establishment of a special committee to ensure editorial independence and, in particular, to ensure the owner didn’t bully the editor into resigning. (Read more about Murdoch and the DJ/WSJ team here)

But Rupert Murdoch didn’t pay more than $5 billion to own the WSJ and not have his own team in there to oversee exactly what he wants done there.  So he put in Les Hinton, his trusted CEO from News International in London, as his Dow Jones CEO and he took Robert Thomson, his trusted editor of the Times of London and parked him as publisher because, for the time being, he couldn’t really put him where he really wanted him – as Journal editor.

But as publisher, Thomson could have a “hands-on” approach to editing the WSJ, and already in the five months there had been big changes on the front page – less of the very long features that the Journal is known for, and more, shorter hard-biting news stories.

Whether Brauchli didn’t like the changes he was ordered to make, or he didn’t like the heavy hand of the publisher who was acting as the de-facto editor, we won’t know for some time since he has received around two years salary not to talk about it, but whatever, he felt he couldn’t continue, he was offered also a job as consultant within the News Corp empire which along with the two years’ salary will see him nicely, and life is just too short to keep getting banged over the head.

Now, Murdoch had engineered the Brauchli ouster without consulting that committee set up to ensure he didn’t do exactly that. The committee tried to close the barn door after the horse had escaped and beat their chests over how this shouldn’t have happened without them being involved, but the deed was done, but did they resign? Absolutely not, why should each give up their $100,000 a year stipend for something like that!  Murdoch’s people now come out and say, yes, they made a mistake in not keeping the committee informed, sorry, and we won’t do it again. Darn right they won’t do it again because Murdoch now has his team in place and doesn’t need to do it again. The committee approved Thomson’s appointment.

Say what you will about Rupert Murdoch but deep down you have to admire what he did and how he did it. He didn’t become a multi-billionaire without knowing how to get his way, no matter what obstacles were there.

So, now that Thomson is really where Murdoch really wanted him what’s going to happen next? As good a clue as any came in a March Washington Post interview where Thomson  made clear his target was the New York Times – we had heard that before – but he was really quite disparaging about The Times’ journalism.

“I think American journalism has some soul-searching to do. American newspapers generally have kept up poorly with change. ..If there is a presumption that what you might call New York Times journalism is the pinnacle of our profession, the profession is in some difficulty.”

Basically, what Murdoch seems to want to do with the Journal is to keep  its business heritage but turn it more into a general news newspaper that takes on the NYT head-on for supremacy as the country’s leading quality national – quality national because the WSJ is second today only to USAToday. A more generalized approach could attract more readers who are not just interested in business news and circulation should shoot up, if the strategy succeeds, and perhaps overtake the Gannett flagship.

Murdoch and Thomson have kept a lid thus far on possible staff revolts at the WSJ by promising more money for more pages of extended coverage, particularly foreign and politics.

Thomson gives up his publisher’s hat to Hinton, so now the two who had forged a close working relationship in London are back at it in New York in the roles they are most comfortable.

And as for Murdoch, swinging all of this in just five months, the master still has his touch!