‘Raging’ Murdoch and ‘nerd’ Thomson take on NY Times

US magazine New York is running a big piece on Robert Thomson’s strategy for the Wall Street Journal under Rupert Murdoch:

‘It’s a spear-thrust right at the [New York] Times, intended to embarrass and bleed the Times,” a senior Journal editor explained’

Entitled ‘The Raging Septuagenarian’ with a standfirst ‘ Taking on the Times, Google, and, in a sense, his own children, Rupert Murdoch is not going gently into the night’, it runs to eight pages, so I’d recommend buying the mag rather than reading online.

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Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street

The Fleet Street diaspora will no doubt be queuing up at the National Portrait Gallery to catch a glimpse of Snowdon’s snap of 12 newspaper editors taken for Vanity Fair. Their sense of importance enhanced by the fact that they barely had time to take their coats off – and that Dacre of the Mail, probably the finest of the generation, couldn’t make it, among others. But will Barber come to regret that tie? Couldn’t surgeons have been brought in to remove Rusbridger’s duffle coat? And didn’t Thomson time his transantlantic shift just right?

Thompson to run Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal

Times editor Robert Thomson is to become publisher of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones after the takeover by Rupert Murdoch’s News International is finalised next week.

Business editor James Harding will replace Thomson at the Times and Les Hinton, executive chairman of News International, will become chief executive at Dow Jones.

James Murdoch, is to take on an expanded role as chairman and chief executive of News Corp Europe and Asia, based in London – making him favourite to succeed Peter Chernin running News Corp. FT video comment.

Times set for whopping change

The Guardian reports that a new Times editor could be appointed next week, freeing Robert Thomson to move over to the Wall Street Journal.

Luxury Monkey from the Times

The Times launched Luxx, a luxury supplement in both print and digital formats, at the weekend. It’s clearly a way of taking a pop at the FT’s How to Spent It – and features two of that title’s creators in its make-up. Times editor Robert Thomson, who made his name expanding the FT‘s Saturday edition, which carried HTSI, has written an intro for the title and one of the writers is Lucia van der Post, who was the original editor.

Times magazine style director Tina Gaudoin – who famously revealed in the Guardian that her son’s first words were ‘daddy’ and ‘taxi’ as she ran the ‘SAS assault course’ that was her life editing Frank magazine in 1998 – is Luxx editor.

It’s interesting to look at the two digital editions, both of which use ‘page-turning’ software. However, HTSI seems to work more elegantly and its page layouts are more elegant too. Luxx looks like a cut-down version of a magazine, more there to put the ads online than the real magazine. The limited amount of text does make it easier to read however.

Unlike HTSI, Luxx has animated elements with the cover model seeming to bow her head and video sequences built into the pages.

Overall though, the simplistic look of Luxx and almost childish interactive elements seem more redolent of Dennis’s Monkey than a top-of-the-market freebie (except the ads, of course).

Murdoch outlines plans for WSJ

Rupert Murdoch has told the Times (a paper he also owns) that he wants to bolster the international coverage of his new acquisition the Wall Street Journal and broaden it out from finance into the arts, culture, and fashion.

Such a strategy would see it come up against the New York Times, but would probably be a relief for the Financial Times. The FT came in for a criticism two years ago that it was moving away from its business base, most prominently from Andrew Neil, a former editor of Murdoch’s Sunday Times.

The present Times editor, Robert Thomson, would appear to be an ideal candidate for such a broadening of the Journal, however. He left the FT for Murdoch’s paper after missing out on the pink paper’s editorship.

At the FT, he led a relaunch of the weekend paper, turning How to Spend It magazine into a money-spinning monthly and the Saturday edition into the best-selling of the week – a model  other papers followed.

Dow Jones and Murdoch: be afraid, be very afraid

The Business has reported that Murdoch has got his Dow Jones deal to take over the Wall Street Journal with only some loose ends to tie up. Note this part of the story:

‘The arrangement [to protect editorial independence] is a tougher version of the one put in place by the British government when Murdoch bought The Times and The Sunday Times in 1981. Murdoch will have less control over the independent directors at the Journal than he does at Times Newspapers, where they are regarded as weak and ineffectual. But one source, acting for the Bancrofts, admitted privately that the Dow independent panel was only a “fig leaf” to facilitate the sale and that over time Murdoch would get round it.

‘John Biffen, the Tory cabinet minister who signed off on 1981 deal to establish independent directors for Times Newspapers in London, has since conceded that the arrangement was also a “fig leaf” designed to allow the sale to proceed.’

The report was written by Andrew Neil and James Forsyth. Neil should know about such things – he was editor of the Sunday Times under Murdoch.

Murdoch forced out Harry Evans, editor of the Times, even though he had appointed him from the Sunday Times. According to Murdoch, Evans went from being a great editor on the Sunday to a bad one on the daily. Does the same fate await Robert Thomson, who lost out in the race for editorship of the Financial Times, but was taken on by Murdoch as Times editor and is now tipped for the top job at the Wall St Journal?