New WSJ editor likely to come from outside

Jeff Bercovici of Conde Nast Portfolio handicaps the race to become the next top editor of The Wall Street Journal, mentioning the same internal names that Talking Biz News threw out last month, but also some names from outside the paper he says are more likely.

Bercovici writes, “The smart money, therefore, is on Murdoch making his hire from within the large News Corp. farm team, or perhaps from another reach of Dow Jones. (One source mentioned Barron’s editor Edwin Finn, who is said to be friendly with Murdoch).

“Should he go outside the company, one name that’s been mentioned recently is Will Lewis, editor in chief of the London Daily Telegraph. Lewis has many qualities of Murdoch’s ideal candidate: business acumen (he made waves as a deal reporter for the Financial Times in the 1990s), impatience for change (the youngest editor of the Telegraph ever, he has focused on dragging it into the digital age), familiarity with the Murdoch ethos (he was business editor of the Sunday Times for three years) and a friendship with Thomson (he was quoted praising him in a recent New York Times profile).

“So he’s perfect. But Lewis says he hasn’t been approached about the job.”

Read more here.