Crain’s New York has named Robert Thomson, the managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, as one of the city’s 25 “New Influentials” as the paper tries to compete more directly with the New York Times.
Andrew Marks writes, “‘The notion that the Journal can compete with the Times as a general– interest newspaper is kind of insane,’ says Dennis Kneale, a former top editor at the Journal and now CNBC’s media and technology editor. ‘You’d have to change the entire brand [and] attract a completely different audience.’
“Mr. Thomson had headed the Financial Times’ effort to penetrate the U.S. market and had been managing editor of The Times of London. He now oversees a staff of 760 and relishes his new challenge—all the more so because it’s in New York.
“‘The opportunity for us to leverage News Corp.’s global reach and our extraordinary content, and deliver it across digital platforms, is incredible,’ Mr. Thomson says. ‘As a journalist, you can’t ask for anything more than to be given the opportunity to succeed in the world’s media capital.'”
Read more here.
