Murdoch's "Head of Content"

Tim Arango of the New York Times writes Monday about Robert Thomson, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal who is now in charge of remaking the content of the business newspaper under ownership of News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Arango writes, “Mr. Thomson said that the News Corporation, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch and which bought the newspaper’s parent company, Dow Jones, last year for close to $5 billion, would invest $6 million a year to add four pages for international news.

“Adding heft to a paper at a time when cutbacks are the industry norm — The Journal’s advertising revenue, like other newspapers, declined in the first quarter — is a nice start for Mr. Thomson to ease the anxieties of Journal staff members whipsawed by change. But the vagueness of his role — publishers do not typically attend news meetings — has everyone wondering what else he has in store.

“’As far as I can tell, he is a mystery man,’ said one editor at the paper who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly. ‘It’s better for him to turn out to be a nice guy and an inspired journalist than for him to start out telling us he loves us, and then turn out to be Darth Vader.’

“Mr. Thomson will soon become much more familiar to The Journal’s staff, because he is the one charged with executing Mr. Murdoch’s vision for the newspaper. He may be the publisher, but his responsibilities include few of the business tasks that title usually connotes.”

Read more here.