Categories: Wall Street Journal

WSJ’s Josh Prager Departs; Questions News Corp. Stewardship Of Paper On His Way Out The Door

Posted by: Jon Fine on April 03

The Wall Street Journal’s Josh Prager is leaving the paper, and he just sent out an email informing colleagues of his decision. Prager is likely best known for his Journal…

News Corp Posts First Quarterly Loss In Three Years; 14 Laid Off At Wall Street Journal, And The Relative Performance of The WSJ and the New York Times

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 05

A grand coincidence? Well, yeah, actually. Judging from the dynamics for virtually any comparable major media outlet (and especially one that gets the bulk of its revenues from print), you…

Michael Wolff’s New Rupert Murdoch Bio, And The Meeting In Which Murdoch Checkmated Dow Jones

Posted by: Jon Fine on November 28

My column in the new issue of BusinessWeek is about Michael Wolff’s new book, “The Man Who Owns The News,” which is a sort of biography of Rupert Murdoch and…

Gerard Baker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, And Differing Notions Of A Partisan Press

Posted by: Jon Fine on November 12

(This post originally misspelled Baker’s first name.) There is a great deal of stuff flying around the Web and being forwarded to me that point out some of the more…

Wall Street Journal Lays Off More Online Staffers; Gawker Media Slashes Staff Too

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 03

(UPDATE 10/7, 7:15 PM: I am told that the Journal has cut at least a few additional editorial staffers besides the ones listed below. Not getting much data beyond that…

Wall Street Journal Executives Reveal Debut Issue Of New Supplement WSJ.

Posted by: Jon Fine on September 03

Executives from the News Corp.’s Wall Street Journal held a breakfast today at Manhattan’s Morgan Library to introduce WSJ., a luxury supplement to the paper. (And, no, that’s not a…

Weird Newspaper Story Of The Day, Part One: Wall Street Journal Cuts Service To Some Rural Subscribers

Posted by: Jon Fine on August 06

A reader who lives in Wyoming, around 30 miles away from the nearest decent-sized town, recently sent me the following email about his Wall Street Journal subscription: >>> i got…

Breaking: Dow Jones Lays Off Around 50 Editors At Wall Street Journal’s South Brunswick, NJ Offices; May Rehire Some

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 16

Well, that didn’t take very long. Wall Street Journal augments its five dismissals on Monday with around 50 job cuts in its South Brunswick, NJ offices, as those jobs shift…

News Corp’s Wall Street Journal Trims Staff

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 14

It’s nothing compared to the cuts at virtually every paper in the Tribune chain, but News Corp is whacking some positions at the Wall Street Journal. Five high-ranking Journal and…

Deputy Managing Editor Bill Grueskin To Leave The Wall Street Journal

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 04

He’s heading off the to be a dean at Columbia Univeristy’s Journalism school. There’s been generalized chatter among WSJ-ites that the editors’ ranks—as opposed to the reporters’ ranks—are in for…

Murdoch And WSJ.com: “Variable Pricing” Is The New “Free?”

Posted by: Jon Fine on January 24

A colleague and I had caught wind earlier this week that News Corp. would not make the Wall Street Journal online free, after all, and while we heard that the…

Regarding A Free Wall Street Journal Online

Posted by: Jon Fine on January 03

Paid Content’s Joseph Weisenthal beats me (by a lot) to blogging thoughtfully about Bear Stearns analyst Spencer Wang’s number-crunching regarding what might happen should News Corp. ditch WSJ.com’s subscription model…

The Rich Zannino Scorecard

Posted by: Jon Fine on December 06

Took over as CEO of Dow Jones: Feb, 2006. Date of Departure from Dow Jones: upon the completion of the News Corp. acqusition of Dow Jones. (Read: soon.) Financial Results,…

The Continuing Saga Of Anyone Being Able To Do Video On The Web

Posted by: Jon Fine on December 05

Andy Plesser from beet.tv came by late last week to film a quick segment bouncing off my media predictions for 2008. And it looks a little bit like this, at…

WSJ’s Robert Frank Nears Prime Job, Evades Murdoch’s Wrath?

Posted by: Jon Fine on September 17

WSJ leaning towards selecting an outstanding lead dog for its for-the-richies upcoming monthly magazine Pursuits: Rich-person specialist (and Wealth Report blogger) Robert Frank, who just penned the sharp and enormously…

Another Wrinkle On The Dow Jones Sale

Posted by: Jon Fine on August 06

New York magazine puts its finger on one other potential side effect of Murdoch’s purchase of Dow Jones which I haven’t heard mentioned much. A Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal…

Tabloid Vets Spotted At The Journal

Posted by: Jon Fine on August 02

This week’s column partially hinges on this notion: Murdoch’s patience for money-losing newspapers is based on his love for newspapering as things were, but not on serious investment in the…

Rupert Murdoch: This Is Your “Legacy” Speaking

Posted by: Jon Fine on August 01

I say in my just-out column that “legacy” is what columnists start yammering on about about when they have no other hammer to hold over their target’s head that might…

News Corp/Dow Jones: All Over But The Signing. And The Shouting. Oy, The Shouting.

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 31

Since there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth everywhere, let me say this outright: Rupert Murdoch buying Dow Jones is the best possible available scenario. Unlike Dean Starkman,…

The Dow Jones Deal And The Market’s Confidence In It Happening

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 25

Yeoman (and –woman) work is being done over at the Wall Street Journal in documenting the Bancroft-ian angst over selling Dow Jones to News Corp. for $60 a share. Ditto…

Dow Jones Bidding War Heats Up! Wait … Maybe Not.

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 20

It must be killing those searching for a Dow Jones alternative to Murdoch that ‘Net entrepreneur Brad Greenspan is one of the only options out there. From his letter to…

Ordinarily I Wouldn’t Believe This Either, But I’m Looking At It Right Now.

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 20

Spotted at 1:29 PM Eastern Standard Time, Friday, July 20: A rainbow, directly over News Corp’s Manhattan headquarters at 1211 Avenue of the Americas. This, I can see from my…

What Happens To Dow Jones’ Stock Price If The Bancrofts Nix The News Corp Deal?

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 18

It falls from its current lofty peak, sure, but to where? Do we assume that the company’s $36 stock price—the level it was at before Murdoch’s bid was made public—already…

More Groundless Journalistic Handwringing Over Murdoch And Dow Jones

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 10

The more CJR’s Dean Starkman fulminates and tut-tuts about the prospect of a Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, the more I become convinced the deal will actually go through. But never…

Say What You Will About Rupert Murdoch …

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 28

… I mean, as we’ve seen, there’s a lot to say about him. But he is the only guy within the same zip code of CEO pay-grade…

Editorial Reorganization At Wall Street Journal Looms

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 12

The Wall Street Journal’s new top editor, managing editor Marcus Brauchli, is putting the finishing touches on a massive reorganization of the financial daily’s top editorial ranks. Chief among the…

Murdoch, Burkle, the Bancrofts, and … David Geffen?

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 05

Regarding Rupert Murdoch’s meeting with Dow Jones’ Bancroft family yesterday, ably recounted here by my colleague Ron Grover: What is playing out is a very old and familiar ritual that’s…

Additional Evidence Anyone Can Do Video On The Web

Posted by: Jon Fine on May 25

In the below mediabistro.com video, I express bafflement at Michael Wolff’s insistence that the New York Times Co. is dangerously close to being “in play,” and attempt to make him…

Nowadays Anyone Can Do Video On The Web! (Who Knew?)

Posted by: Jon Fine on May 22

Experiment time: Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff (with whom I semiregularly spar about things media on CNBC) and I are playing around with videos for mediabistro.com in which we pontificate…

Paul Steiger Did What?

Posted by: Jon Fine on May 08

The long run in journalism for Norman Pearlstine, a former top editor of the Wall Street Journal, is marred by one nasty late-career blot: he turned over Time reporter Matt…

Murdoch’s Big Plans For The Wall Street Journal (Assuming He Ends Up Owning It)

Posted by: Jon Fine on May 04

The more I read and think about this, the more I come to the interpretation that Rupert sees in the Wall Street Journal a chance to build a paper that…

Examples Of Misguided Journalistic Handwringing Over The Prospect of Rupert Murdoch Owning The Wall Street Journal

Posted by: Jon Fine on May 02

I hope this will not become an ongoing series. Dean Starkman opines in the Columbia Journalism Review about the $60 per share bid Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp made for Dow…

Paul Steiger’s Memo To The Wall Street Journal’s Newsroom Regarding The News Corp Bid

Posted by: Jon Fine on May 02

A friend passes this along: To the staff, It is never easy to cover one’s own organization, but I know you are up to the task. A few reminders: —It…

Some Thoughts on Rupert Murdoch and Dow Jones

Posted by: Jon Fine on May 01

1. Anyone want to argue that News Corp. owning Dow Jones could be good for the Wall Street Journal and the company—or at least better than its management of the…

Wall Street Journal Breaks With Tradition. It’s Just Unclear Which One.

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 18

The Wall Street Journal will put an ad on its front page, beginning the third quarter of this year. (In other words: Soon.) Size, in this case, matters, but Gordon…

Regarding ‘Today’s Dishonest Attack On The Times’: Ex WSJ-er And Current NYT-er Fires Back at WSJ Editorial Page

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 30

(Gardiner Harris, who sent the following email in response to this bizarre, inflammatory and very lengthy editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal, spent a few years at the Journal before…

Dow Jones: Rich Zannino In …

Posted by: Jon Fine on January 03

… Peter Kann and Karen Elliott House out. We have the first big media news of ‘06: the husband-and-wife duo who’ve long helmed Dow Jones and the…

Weakend

Posted by: on October 11

Evidently, Karen Elliott House is happy even as Bill Keller sneers, but, man, is the new Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal awful or what? Since two different people…