Categories: OLD Media Moves

Getting used to a free WSJ.com

New York Times reporter Saul Hansell wrote Tuesday that Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz sounded as if he was warming to the idea of making the newspaper’s web site free to all readers — a move that new owner News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch has championed. Crovitz has previously been a proponent of a pay site.

Hansell, who attended the Future of Business Media conference, wrote, “When asked about the Journalâ€™s online plans, Mr. Crovitz answered, in essence, that the company was busy rethinking.

“‘The Wall Street Journal already has the best business Web site,’ Mr. Crovitz said. ‘The issue now is can we also have the biggest business Web site.’

“He added that ‘there may be ways to continue down the path we are on and make more of our journalism freely available,’ adding, ‘There is more to come on that analysis as we conclude it.’

“Mr. Crovitz was equally agile in talking about the Journalâ€™s longstanding relationship with CNBC and its fast friendship with the Fox Business Channel.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.