The agreement that is supposed to protect journalists at The Wall Street Journal from interference by News Corp. executives if the company acquires Dow Jones & Co., the newspaper’s parent, has been posted on the paper’s Web site Friday night.
Here’s the good stuff:
The authority of the managing editor and the editorial page editor of the WSJ and the managing editor of Newswires (unless, in the case of the managing editor of Newswires, he or she reports to the managing editor of the WSJ) will include:
• the power to hire and remove subordinates within their respective publications and operations, consistent with departmental budgets,
• control over spending and allocation of resources within departmental budgets set by N Corp management following discussion with the relevant editor; the decisions of N Corp on departmental budgets will be final.”
Later, it states more powers for the editors that included:
- The managing editor of the WSJ would be consulted prior to the use of the WSJ or Dow Jones brand names by N Corp or any other party to give the managing editor the opportunity to raise any objections to and suggestions concerning the proposed use of the brand. The decisions of N Corp on branding matters would be final.Â
- In the case of the managing editors, authority over use of staff by advertisers and other business,Â
- In the case of the WSJ editorial page editor (1) authority to choose the editorial board members, the opinion columnists, the op-ed section editor and the editors of the book review, the Leisure & Arts section, OpinionJournal.com and the Far Eastern Economic Review, (2) final say over the positions taken by the editorial page and (3) authority over the selection of op-ed pieces. The editorial page editor would continue to report to the WSJ publisher,Â
- N Corp agrees that the following persons will be retained on their positions following closing, Marcus Brauchli (WSJ managing editor), Paul Gigot (WSJ editorial page editor) and Neal Lipschutz (Newswires managing editor)
Read more here.
