Changes made in WSJ’s DC management

Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson sent out the following announcement on Monday morning:

We are making a fundamental change to the structure of our Washington Bureaus. After three years as Bureau Chief, John Bussey will move to New York to write a weekly column (and more) on international business and be promoted to Assistant Managing Editor and Executive Business Editor.

The Newswires and Journal teams will be combined and led by the adroit Jerry Seib, with two Deputy Bureau Chiefs, Matthew Rose, who will oversee the day-to-day running of Journal coverage, and Rob Wells, who currently heads the Newswires operation and will have an enhanced role overseeing real-time reporting.

In his role as Chief of a unified bureau, Jerry will continue to write his market-moving Capital Journal column once a week and provide leadership for all of our journalists in Washington.

The change in structure reflects our need to identify and develop emerging themes ahead of the competition, and to maximize the use of our very talented Newswires team. Integration is possible now because of the excellent work done by Rob and John to improve communication and coordination between the two bureaus, which covered the mid-term elections with much distinction.

We should laud John for his work in restructuring the bureau, promoting emerging talent and developing coverage at a time when our audience has grown significantly, and our national and international role as a trusted source of political and economic news has expanded.

Jerry will take up his new role early next month, and report to Matt Murray and Neal Lipschutz.  Join me in congratulating Jerry on his ascension, and John, Rob and Matthew on their promotions.