Murdoch to WSJ reporters: Please stay

Joseph Menn at the Los Angeles Times writes Friday that News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch has called at least three Wall Street Journal reporters who are leaving the paper in an attempt to get them to stay.

Menn wrote, “Some journalists in the newsroom took the gesture as a sign of Murdoch’s commitment to keep the staff’s quality high. Others said it showed that Murdoch would take a hands-on approach in newsroom affairs despite a special committee established to keep him from interfering in coverage.

“News Corp. agreed this month to pay $5 billion for Dow Jones & Co., the owner of the Journal.

“Murdoch, who has been vacationing in the Mediterranean in recent days, made the calls to the reporters from his yacht, the Rosehearty, named for the Murdoch family’s ancestral home in Scotland.

“Murdoch called reporters Tara Parker-Pope, Kate Kelly and Henny Sender, according to five people at the Journal who asked not to be named for fear of upsetting the new owner. Parker-Pope and Kelly were weighing job offers from the New York Times, which Murdoch sees as the Journal’s biggest rival, while Sender was considering a post at the Financial Times, the leading business paper in Europe.”

Read more here.