WSJ names editors to oversee workflow changes

Wall Street Journal executive editor Matt Murray sent out the following to the staff on Thursday:

Dear All,

Now that we have announced our fantastic leadership team, I want to share news on the next stages of our workflow revamp. Improving how we work will be an important task in the months ahead. There is no issue more important for us to get right than how we produce our journalism, from conception to publication, in a way that ensures it is effective and logical, that puts digital and mobile tools in the hands of journalists and that deepens the presence of visuals and video in our newsroom. These new workflows should better position us to plan and create great journalism, with better communication and less triage, repair work and frustration.

Sheila Courter, a leader on the news desk who has pioneered new ways of working digitally, has agreed to lead the rollout of new workflows throughout the bureaus. Starting with New York bureaus and building on the pilot that began earlier this year in the New York Corporate team, Sheila will work with every bureau and coverage area to help understand and delineate our revised ways of conceiving, producing and publishing our work.

Mike Ventura from the news desk is working closely with Sheila in this project as well, along with Lex Kaptik, our newly appointed Editing Chief. Please help these workflow cartographers in any way they ask; their roadmap will be central to our future success.

Matt