Another WSJ Executive Resigning

[hughb]

The story in today's WSJ doesn't really sound too good, at least not when I try to read between the lines. The article describes Brauchli as a politician, and later it quoted him as saying his departure had nothing to do with issues of editorial independence. Well, if it didn't, then why was it so sudden? Why not announce he is stepping down in a month and will assist the new owners in finding a new managing editor?

Anyhoo, the changes that Murdoch wants to make don't really seem that drastic anyway. He wants more general news in order to compete with the NYT, that doesn't seem like a problem, and he also wants to cut down the length of the stories to make them newsier, (their word, not mine! LOL). So if that's really all that Murdoch wants, then we don't really have a problem here. I just fear that Murdoch will announce that Vince McMahon is the new managing editor. You can bet the next day's issue will have DUI's and adulterous affairs on the front page above the fold.

 

[Qty]

Dow Jones Committee Criticizes
Handling of Brauchli Resignation
By STEVE STECKLOW, WSJ
April 29, 2008 4:54 p.m.

A special committee established to oversee The Wall Street Journal's editorial integrity said its members should have been informed earlier that the newspaper's managing editor, Marcus Brauchli, had been pressured to resign.

The criticism came in a chronology the committee released on Tuesday surrounding the events that led to the surprise resignation of Mr. Brauchli on April 22. At a meeting that day, "Committee members expressed the view that learning of the Brauchli matter after the fact failed to meet the letter and the spirit of the agreement" which outlines the body's powers, the chronology stated. (See the chronology.)

The committee said it relayed these concerns to officials at News Corp., which in December acquired Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal. A News Corp. spokesman declined to comment.

Mr. Brauchli, a longtime Journal reporter and editor, resigned less than a year after he was named managing editor. He did so about 10 days after a meeting this month with Journal publisher Robert Thomson and Dow Jones Chief Executive Officer Leslie Hinton – both News Corp. appointees – in which they suggested it might be better to have their own person running the newspaper.

He agreed to resign and remain at News Corp. as a consultant.

"It was not our view that I had to report to the committee my voluntary resignation under the terms of the editorial agreement," Mr. Brauchli, 46 years old, said Tuesday. "I regret that they first learned of my resignation late in the process."

The five-member special committee was created as a condition of News Corp.'s agreement to acquire Dow Jones. The body is responsible for safeguarding Dow Jones's editorial independence and integrity.

In its chronology, the committee also said it "has not been made aware of any issues of editorial independence or integrity either before or since" the April 22 meeting.

It also said, "The Committee met subsequently and decided that there was no practical way to 'unresign' Brauchli and start the process over.

"Under the agreement, the committee has the duty and responsibility to approve or disapprove such actions. The Committee intends to exercise fully its role in the approval of a successor managing editor and to take the steps necessary to prevent a repeat of the process it has just been through."

The members of the committee are: Thomas J. Bray, former editorial page editor of the Detroit News; Louis Boccardi, former chief executive of the Associated Press; Jack Fuller, retired president of Tribune Publishing Co.; Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Susan M. Phillips, dean of the George Washington University School of Business.

 

[Champion]

Quote from Qty:

The following Joke (so no hate mail please ) is a little dated, but anyways …

Who Reads the Newspapers

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they should run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave LA to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from any country or galaxy as long as they are Democrats.

10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

A bit of an amusing cunt, aren't you? But yes, there is definitely a lot insight in this humour.

 

[Qty]

Good Morning Wall Street!
- Here's what's on the Journal's Front Page:

PAGE ONE
Modest Proposal:
A Vermont Town Bucks Nakedness
Skinny-Dipping Spurs An Outbreak of Nudity;
The Fanny-Pack Man

By SHEFALI ANAND
May 19, 2008; Page A1


** What a wake up call! :eek: