WSJ names new China editor

Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson made the following announcement to the staff on Monday:

“I am very pleased to announce that Andy Browne has been appointed China Editor for The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, effectively overseeing our editorial operations in China. His new role, which he will begin on December 1, will follow the return of Rebecca Blumenstein to New York to the key post of International News Editor and is part of our strategy to integrate the reporting teams of Newswires and the Journal.

“Andy has an intimate understanding of the work and importance of news agency operations, having spent 20 years at Reuters in Asia in a number of posts, including as Beijing bureau chief and Asia news editor. He left Reuters in 2004 to join the Journal as China economics correspondent and, for the past two years, has been in Beijing as a partner at the Brunswick Group. Andy was a member of the Journal’s China team which in 2007 won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.

“Andy will report to Gabriella Stern, Senior Editor at Newswires for Asia-Pacific, and to Nik Deogun, the Journal’s International Editor. Under the new arrangement, J.R. Wu and Shen Hong, the Beijng and Shanghai bureau chiefs for Newswires, will report to Andy, as will Jason Dean, who will take on an expanded role as China News Editor for the Journal. We wish all of our China team members the very best.”