Categories: OLD Media Moves

The WSJ’s potential succession plan worries its journalists

Nick Summers of The Daily Beast writes Saturday about what would happen at The Wall Street Journal if managing editor Robert Thomson was elevated to the role of CEO of News Corp. and Journal publisher, replacing Les Hinton, who resigned Friday.

Summers writes, “If Thomson is elevated to CEO, the natural choice for his replacement as editor is the paper’s No. 2, Gerard Baker. While Thomson has been largely accepted by Journal staffers, who were fearful that the conservative Murdoch would install a clearly partisan editor after purchasing the broadsheet, Baker is viewed as being much more in the mold of the typical Murdoch meddler. The tycoon has a pattern of buying publications with promises of safeguarding their editorial voice, then installing his own people. Owing to this history, howls of protest met Murdoch’s pursuit of Dow Jones and the Journal in 2007.

“Is Baker in charge the nightmare scenario?

“‘Yeah,’ a Journal reporter told The Daily Beast, when the Hinton resignation was barely two hours old. ‘I think the public perception matches the newsroom perception on those two. Robert is this serious journalist, and Gerry has his right-wing views. … He’s definitely in the newsroom aligned more as a partisan.’ Baker’s political views are visible in columns he wrote for The Times of London, another News Corp. publication. Politico, reporting his hiring as Journal deputy editor in chief in 2008, noted that Baker was a ‘self-described ‘right-wing curmudgeon.’’

“Thomson and Baker did not respond to requests for comment.

“‘Here are the worries [if] Robert goes back to being publisher,’ the Journal reporter said. ‘One scenario is that Gerry takes over, and that’s terrifying. The newsroom trusts him less. … Another one is that some News Corp. person comes in and there are mass layoffs. The third is just that News Corp. spins us off, and the other papers. Which I think is a real [possibility now].’ As the phone hacking scandal has developed, analysts have differed on how likely it is that Murdoch will sell his newspaper properties, which he holds dear but act as financial drains.”