Categories: OLD Media Moves

Murdoch's first change will be WSJ.com

Steven Zeitchik of Variety writes that the first change that News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch will make with Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, is to change the newspaper’s web site.

Zeitchik wrote, “While the site has been one of the few great success stories of a print-to-Web transition for a daily newspaper, its functional layout suggests to many experts that it — and maybe even the layout of the paper itself — could be in for an overhaul.

“At the very least, observers say, look for a better combination with Dow Jones Newswires, which now shares almost no public presence with WSJ.com.

“Murdoch, of course, must still convince a hardened group of Bancrofts to sell the company. The family is skedded to meet at the offices of its attorneys on Monday.

“Opponents of the sale have said they don’t expect Murdoch to wait long before shaking up the Wall Street Journal, possibly with newsroom cuts.”

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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.