Brauchli sends testy note to WSJ staffers after walkout

Wall Street Journal managing editor Marcus Brauchli sent an angry message to the business journalists who didn’t show up for work on Thursday morning to protest the fact that the newspaper might be sold to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch.

James Robinson of The Observer newspaper in London wrote, “In the meantime, feelings are running high at the paper, where senior managers have been promised a share of a $50m windfall should they be made redundant when the deal goes through. Browning claims many of them share their journalists’ scepticism about Murdoch, but they were unhappy about last week’s protest. ‘Some of them are trying to make their peace with Murdoch. We got a testy email from managing editor Marcus Brauchli [following last week’s protest] which had obviously been written by lawyers.’ It told them their action wasn’t permitted and could result in disciplinary action.

“The Journal’s highly regarded editorial team fears Murdoch will change the content and take it downmarket, although it is difficult to see why an astute businessman like Murdoch would risk damaging the paper’s high-brow appeal. There is little doubt he will make changes, however. ‘He has enormous editorial flair,’ says one of his former journalists. ‘He could make the Journal into a much better product.’

“In a recent interview with the New York Times, Murdoch confessed: ‘I’m sometimes frustrated by the long stories,’ adding that he rarely gets around to finishing some articles. He told the Times he likes the paper’s neo-conservative comment pages, but would like to see more political coverage in the news pages and, just for good measure, added that he wasn’t a huge fan of the Saturday Journal either.”

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