Does Murdoch know what he's doing with the WSJ?

Gabriel Sherman of The New Republic writes in the latest issue about the changes being made at The Wall Street Journal and questions whether new owner News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch is making the right decisions.

Sherman writes, “But the push for more spot news has left many staffers concerned over the fate of the Journal‘s signature front-page features, which are often investigative pieces running more than 2,000 words. In the past, reporters often spent days crafting story memos and shaping story ideas even before presenting them to editors. But, in the conference call with the D.C. bureau on April 28, Thomson signaled that story memos shouldn’t run longer than 400 words, leaving some to surmise he’s less interested in long-form narrative.

“During another telephone exchange with the Journal‘s bureau chiefs the next day, Thomson dismissed speculation that Murdoch was planning to kill the ‘A-Hed,’ the quirky human-interest columns that have covered topics from the difficulty of spelling the word ‘millennium’ (during the y2k craze) to feuding hair salons in Detroit. In response to a question about how far along Murdoch was in his campaign to reinvent the Journal, Thomson said, ‘we’re a six to seven on a scale of ten,’ according to one participant on the call.

“Thomson has also raised the specter that there would soon be a restructuring of the editing ranks. ‘They want a much more reporter-driven paper,’ one staffer says. Historically, the Journal has stood apart for its ranks of editors and bureau chiefs, who closely supervised teams of reporters and shepherded copy up the chain of command to New York. While Thomson didn’t provide a specific number, Journal staffers speculate that as many as 40 to 60 editors could be laid off or reassigned. A Dow Jones spokesperson declined to comment.”

Rwead more here.