Worry inside the WSJ about longer stories

John Koblin of The New York Observer writes Wednesday about the concern among Wall Street Journal reporters about the longer stories that have always run on the paper’s front page.

Koblin wrote, “It’s a touchy subject within Journal culture, and it set off an alarm in the newsroom in the days following. Reporters and editors worried that Mr. Murdoch’s plans would diminish a famed Journal institution, the so-called ‘leder’ stories.

“‘There’s definitely concern that the longer special pieces at The Journal are going to be reined in,’ said Josh Prager, a special writer for the Journal. ‘It is a concern for me as a person who likes writing them and likes reading them.’

“Mr. Prager contributed one 5,000-word story in December 2006 that was his total contribution to the paper for the year. But at a meeting on Jan. 10 at Bayard’s, new publisher Robert Thomson joked that a leder shouldn’t take as long to turn around as the ‘gestation of a llama,’ or about 350 days.

“Mr. Prager, who did not attend the bureau chief’s meeting, said there was ‘ambient’ noise in the newsroom about it; one reporter described the newsroom as ‘dismayed,’ another as ‘very nervous.'”

Read more here.