Wall Street Journal financial editor Dennis Berman sent out the following on Tuesday:
Last summer Gerry Baker promised a “radical upgrade” in our digital capabilities. Now it is our time to meet his mandate.
Today we unveiled a significantly enhanced home for the terrific work you produce. The WSJ Markets page is faster, livelier and better able to deliver our high-quality news product to readers in real time. In a matter of hours, readers have responded, giving us the top three most-read stories of the day: John Carney‘s piece on the last Goldman Sachs/Bear Stearns mystery; the story on Andrew Caspersen;’s arrest; and Annamaria Andriotis‘s great take on parents taking on more student loans. What’s more, the new Markets Live module is full of great material from so many of you. We are off to a good start!
There are also a range of exciting personnel and job moves, detailed in a separate note, that are part of these changes.
The good news is that our Markets readership has been growing at an impressive rate over the last year. Readers are more engaged with this material than virtually any other on the Journal site. How can we do it even better?
1) We will endeavor to start and end the day earlier to be in better sync with markets and our readers. Our traffic peaks around 10:30am, a time where traditionally the Journal was just getting started on stories. John Carney, Stephen Grocer, Erik Holm and Lora Western – who are leading this real-time markets offering — will be arriving at the office by 7:30am. We will also be working more tightly than ever with our London colleagues to serve our readers earlier.
2) We are improving our sophistication and commentary around core markets topics, having recently added James Mackintosh and Ken Brown to our columnist ranks. We will feature more prominently their work, as well as that of our wonderful Heard on the Street team, investing columnist Jason Zweig and deal columnist Ron Barusch. I will also be writing columns more frequently.
3) More than ever, our success will be dependent on your contributions. The “live from the markets” feel will be built by reporters filing first takes and building from there. The first word is not the last word. And as I’ve said previously, we will no longer need to use the antiquated term “blog” or “blog posts.” We will soon be, in fact, dissolving the Moneybeat blog as a standalone destination. This is just what we do. Not an adjunct to it.
Our overarching goal is to cultivate readers who view the Wall Street Journal’s markets and finance journalism as indispensable. We must remember that 50% — and growing fast! — of our visitors now read on a mobile device, and are finding our work via sideways methods.
Thanks for helping us get to this day. Now it’s our time to make it all happen.
