WSJ redesign shows emphasis on Internet

BusinessWeek’s Catherine Holohan wrote that the redesigned Wall Street Journal is actually showing that newspapers need to focus more on what they’re doing on the Internet if they want to keep their readers.

Holohan said, “The once-ignored stepchild is getting a lot more attention lately, both from Internet-savvy audiences and deep-pocketed advertisers. Perhaps the biggest evidence of this change is the redesigned Wall Street Journal and WSJ.com (DJ), launched on Jan. 2. The narrower, more colorful print edition now concentrates on analysis stories, leaving the breaking news that once made up nearly half the newspaper for the online edition, which publishes throughout the day. ‘Business news, in particular, is very sensitive to the time cycle,’ says Bill Grueskin, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Online, explaining the impetus for the redesign. ‘The value of a story that you break’ diminishes as more publications publish their own online versions within minutes, he says.

“Industry executives and analysts say the paper is going in the right direction and that other publications will have to follow suit or risk folding.”

Later, she added, “But the Journal‘s efforts are among the most extensive. In the ’90s, the online edition and the newspaper did not work that closely together, despite being in the same newsroom, says Grueskin. ‘The Online Journal was right next to Page One. So physically we were very close, but there wasn’t much interaction,’ he said. Now, print reporters regularly will send scoops to online and Dow Jones Newswire reporters, who flesh out breaking news stories, Grueskin says. The print reporters then work on an analysis piece for the paper edition. He also says that more print journalists have become interested in creating online-only features such as blogs.”

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