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If the Peach Stole the Journal CreamWhat if the Financial Times raided Murdoch's Wall Street Journal newsroom?

By Jack Shafer
Posted Tuesday, June 5, 2007, at 6:57 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Profiles in courage: I'd give slots to the half-dozen Journal China correspondents who sent a letter to the Bancroft family asking them to keep the paper out of Murdoch's mitts. One way to read the document is as an advance resignation letter addressed to Murdoch. They are Gordon Fairclough, Mei F. Fong, James T. Areddy, Shai Oster, Jane Spencer, Andrew Batson, and Jason S.L. Leow. Several of them shared this year's Pulitzer for international reporting.

Don't forget the editors: Dan Kelly and Jonathan Kaufman for their labors on Page One; Bryan Gruley in Chicago; Emily Nelson in London; Rebecca Blumenstein in China; Gary Putka in Boston; and Gerald F. Seib in Washington.

The king of everything: If "Personal Technology" columnist Walt Mossberg agreed to join the walk to the FT, Murdoch would blow a ventricle and a bladder. Of course, Mossberg would have to take a 50 percent pay cut, which would bring him down to about $500,000, if The New Yorker's report of his compensation can be believed.

Who have I forgotten? Jonathan Eig, Farnaz Fassihi, John R. Wilke, Joel Millman, Jesse Drucker, Joshua Harris Prager, David Armstrong, John R. Emshwiller, Lee Gomes, Jeanne Dugan, Laura Landro, and Marilyn Chase. The list goes on and on. Dive into the Journal talent pool for yourself and see if you can reach bottom. Maybe the FT should hire the best 200 from the Journal.

Although he's 76 years old, Rupert Murdoch says he intends to run his News Corp. dynasty for another 20 years, and having swindled Satan in a pact, he may never die. But if he does, and the News Corp. house of cards crashes, who will inherit the Wall Street Journal? Who will even bother to tell the lies about respecting the newspaper, as Murdoch has? Tycoons in training James and Lachlan? Daughter Elisabeth? Wife Wendi? If Murdoch doesn't throttle the Journal, his heirs will.

If Murdoch cared about the sort of high-quality journalism the Wall Street Journal produces, why hasn't he dedicated his millions to producing more of it inside his own media empire? Because quality journalism—the sort that angers advertisers, infuriates corporations, and outrages government—is alien to Murdoch.

All Murdoch really wants to do, as Allan Sloan points out in Newsweek, is extract the stored value in the brand names Dow Jones, Barron's, and Wall Street Journal for his planned business channel. He'll be the one killing the Journal. Siphoning off its talent to the Financial Times will only hasten the process.

******

Open letter to the Financial Times staff: I like you, too. I even subscribe. But my mind belongs to the Wall Street Journal. You've got to admit, 100 of the best Journal journalists plus your 450 editorial staffers would make a much better newspaper. But let's talk about it via e-mail: . While we're at it, what Barron's journos should defect? (E-mail may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise. Permanent disclosure: Slate is owned by the Washington Post Co. More disclosure: Tim Harford's column "The Undercover Economist" appears in both Slate and the Financial Times. Slate Editor Jacob Weisberg's weekly column appeared in the Financial Times until recently.)*

Correction, June 7, 2007: The original version of this article gave the wrong title for Tim Harford's column in Slate and the Financial Times. It is "The Undercover Economist. Also, the original version erroneously stated that Jacob Weisberg's Slate column appears in the Financial Times. It once did, but no longer does.

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Remarks from the Fray:

You're leaving out a rather important aspect of the difference between the editorial policies of the two papers, to both of which I subscribe. The Financial Times is a (British) left leaning, not centrist, newspaper, which nonetheless publishes conservative columnists regularly. The Wall Street Journal is an American conservative icon, which almost never publishes the "opinions" of the extreme left. When the WSJ goes Murdoch the American conservative movement loses its most distinguished voice. The FT on the other hand will simply, if it hires the journalists, as you suggest, get more balanced and centrist. I therefore predict that the acquisition of the WSJ by Murdoch will destroy the "brands" involved if the aftermath of the acquisition is the exodus you foresee.

--jacklifton

(To reply, click here.)

If Murdoch buys the WSJ & the FT is sensible, they'll poach WSJ subscribers by doing ... nothing. Sure, they may not get as many as if they wooed a 100 or 200 WSJ staffers, but you forget that bringing all these people on will require a bigger paper for all of them to write in. I'd rather have the FT's kitschy photos, sparse ads and concise than the relative bloat that is the WSJ.

And bring on Mossberg for half a mil, when Paul Taylor does a perfectly fine job already? Do you think the FT is crazy? I like Mossberg and his Mac-headedness, but I'm tired of journalists turning into their own brands. Yes, the FT would be wise to bring on a few people at reasonable cost to shore up their reporting, but hopefully they won't mess too much with what's already a bloody good paper. And it's pink (salmon-pink if you must), not peach!

--sonnysighed

(To reply, click here.)

Does the FT want more subscribers, though?

An FT editor visited one of my J-school classes. His biggest boast was that the average income of an FT subscriber was something astronomical -- something in the neighborhood of $500,000 per year, if I remember correctly. This was six or seven years ago. Think of the ad rates.

A subscription drive targeting WSJ refugees would dilute the brand. Maybe it wouldn't be worth it.

--hanksims

(To reply, click here.)

The real troubling aspect of a Murdoch takeover is this.Suppose a journalist reports a story that embarrass the Chinese government, and the Chinese government want the source of the story. Will you trust Rupert to protect the source?

--Ronin8317

(To reply, click here.)

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