Study at Dow Jones evaluating news gathering

A Bloomberg story that was based on interviews with Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger and publisher Gordon Crovitz noted that there is currently an internal study being led to determine how to “coordinate” news gathering.

Reporter Leon Lazaroff wrote, “Dow Jones plans to streamline news operations across the Journal, Newswires, MarketWatch and Barron’s. Last month, the Journal closed offices in Toronto, Montreal and Calgary that employed four full-time and two part- time reporters.

“Crovitz and Steiger stopped short of guaranteeing no job cuts as Dow Jones eliminates overlap among reporters. Paul Ingrassia, vice president of news strategy, is heading an internal study to determine how best to coordinate news gathering.

“Finding new ways to save will be difficult, said Brian Shipman, an analyst at UBS AG in Stamford, Connecticut. Dow Jones has already cut costs outside the newsroom in the past five years.

“‘They have little room to cut costs more without cutting into muscle,’ said Shipman, who has a ‘neutral’ rating on Dow Jones & Co. ‘If advertising takes a significant turn for the worse, they wouldn’t be able to makes cuts without operating income declining faster than revenue.’

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