Tag Archives: Dow Jones & Co.
New WSJ parent lost money; Thomson to be paid $2 million
by Chris Roush
The News Corp. spinoff that will be the parent of The Wall Street Journal lost money in the most recent quarter, and its CEO, current Journal managing editor Robert Thomson, will be paid $2 million, reports The Journal.
John Jannarone of The Journal writes, “In the first quarter of fiscal 2013, the publishing company, which will retain the News Corp. name, would have had a net loss of $92 million compared with a net profit of $38 million a year earlier. That was also largely because of a restructuring charge. But its results were also hurt by legal fees related to the phone-hacking scandal in its U.K. newspaper division and development costs in its education division.
“In the quarter, Ebitda at the news and information-services division fell 34% to $126 million from a year earlier. The decline was mainly the result of lower advertising revenue at the company’s Australian newspapers.
“The book-publishing division, which includes HarperCollins, saw Ebitda rise to $40 million in the quarter through September from $31 million a year earlier.
“The publishing company’s new chief executive, Robert Thomson, who is now The Wall Street Journal’s managing editor, will earn a salary of $2 million and a performance-based bonus with a $2 million target, the filing showed.”
Read more here.
Dow Jones News Fund seeks media for biz news internships
by Chris Roush
The Dow Jones News Fund is recruiting media and news organizations to hire 2013 summer interns for 10 weeks in its business reporting internship program.
This is an opportunity for news organizations to hire great interns who have already been vetted by the Fund. Media outlets who want to enroll their own candidates in the pre-internship training program can also coordinate with the Fund. Placements are being made and should be completed by January.
Among participating media are The Denver Post, the Cape Cod Times, Barron’s and Thomson-Reuters. The Fund invites online, on-the-air and niche publications as well as those with non-traditional business coverage to participate.
DJNF business reporting interns will participate in an intensive training course at New York University from May 25 to 31. The 2013 program director is Will Sutton, a Society of American Business Editors and Writers member who serves on its diversity committee. Sutton has supervised business coverage as a newspaper editor and he was a 2012 Donald W. Reynolds Visiting Professor of Business Journalism at Grambling State University. He is a former president of the National Association of Black Journalists and a co-founder of what became UNITY: Journalists of Color. Interns will be ready for work by June 3.
Interns will ramp up knowledge and skills in earnings reports, reading Securities and Exchange Commission documents, IPOs and more. Sutton will include SABEW members among the faculty of business journalists from Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times as well as other news organizations. Academic professionals will also help interns learn how to dig for information in documents and online and how to use social media to report on business. Reach Sutton via Twitter at @willsutton or email at resultswithwill@aol.com.
News organizations are asked to provide a training grant of $1,000 to DJNF and to pay a weekly salary of at least $350 for no fewer than 10 weeks of work.
The student application deadline has passed, so interested undergraduate and graduate students can plan to apply for the 2014 program.
To enroll to hire one of the more than 75 applicants, contact Linda Shockley at linda.shockley@dowjones.com or 609-520-5929. Details at https://www.newsfund.org.
Dow Jones/WSJ reporter leaving for job at grad school
by Chris Roush
Anusha Shrivastava, a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal for the past six years, is departing for a job at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism at the beginning of next year.
In an email to the staff, Shrivastava writes, “After more than six years covering exciting and unusual beats ranging from the asset-backed securities and commercial paper markets to foreign exchange and money market funds, I am heading out for a fresh adventure.
“I’m joining the career services group at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, starting Jan. 2.”
Shrivastava has a PhD in industrial relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University in India and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University.
She previously worked for the Hartford Business Journal, the Associated Press and the Waterbury Republican American. She was also the South Asian Journalists Association president from 2009 to 2011.
While in India, Shrivastava worked as a reporter and segment producer for Asia Business News in New Delhi, India, from 1996-1998 and for BBC World Television from 1993-1996.
She has written for The Times of India and The Hindustan Times, two of India’s largest English language dailies from 1988-1993. She is the co-author of a book “Comparative Government and Politics – Concepts and Emerging Trends.”
All things disclosure
by Ed O'Farrell
If you’re familiar with coverage of the technology beat, you’re undoubtedly familiar with All Things D run by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.
What you might not be as familiar with is their disclosure statements, Swisher’s in particular. Mossberg’s statement can be found here.
In her statement, Swisher discloses the following information:
- Swisher’s spouse, Meghan Smith has been an executive at industry giant Google since 2003 and derives a substantial amount of her income from Google shares and options. Swisher states she does not make decisions related to these positions nor does she own or have future rights to own or control any of them;
- Swisher pledges she will not discuss anything with her spouse prior to publication and will not report any information she gleans from her spouse unless it can be attributed by name to her in that particular instance;
- Although she does intend to break news on All Things D she will make, “subjective comments on the business and strategies of technology companies and issues”;
- While Dow Jones is the owner of All Things D, Swisher and Mossberg have established an LLC whose purpose is to manage payments to independent contractors, including herself;
- Swisher does not coordinate her work with the advertising sales staff, nor does she solicit or sell ads for the newspaper, web site or sponsorships for the All Things D conference;
- While she does make a number of unpaid speeches each year, if she accepts a speaking fee it will not be from a company she covers.
Swisher acknowledges her disclosure is “more than most of you want to know,” but if you’re an end user like me you do want to know as much as you can about writers’ conflicts in order to gauge the credibility of their reporting or analysis.
So I am a bit dismayed that concerted disclosures from prominent voices such as Swisher and Mossberg continue to be conspicuously absent from their counterparts in the business and financial press, where conflicts and cynicism are at least as prevalent if not greater.
Ed O’Farrell is an avid reader of business journalism. He is also worked in b2b business news publishing, having been employed by Institutional Investor, the Bond Buyer, and Money-Media in various sales and marketing capacities.
Dow Jones thanks employees
by Chris Roush
Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Marketwatch.com and Dow Jones Newswires, thanked every single one of its employees in a full-page Journal ad on Tuesday.
The ad included all of their names.
News Corp splits in two, and Rupert pours champagne
by Liz Hester
News Corp. announced details of its split in two on Monday. Here’s the Wall Street Journal’s take on its own fate:
News Corp on Monday fleshed out management details for when the media conglomerate splits in two, and disclosed that the News Corp. name will stay with the publishing assets.
After the split, the entertainment assets will take the name Fox Group.
Also on Monday, the media company disclosed that it will cease publication of the Daily, its iPad-only publication, in mid-December, ending a money-losing experiment in digital publishing.
Heading the publishing company post-spinoff will be Robert Thomson, 51 years old, who is currently Wall Street Journal managing editor and editor in chief of Dow Jones. News Corp. said he will assume the new role on Jan. 1, though the split isn’t expected to be completed until midyear.
Gerard Baker, 50, currently Mr. Thomson’s deputy at the Journal, will succeed him, the company confirmed. In the Journal’s newsroom on Monday afternoon, with the staff gathered, News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch jokingly poured Champagne on Mr. Baker’s head after a round of speeches.
Here’s the New York Times take on it:
A phone hacking scandal and restless shareholders may have forced Rupert Murdoch to split News Corporation into two companies, but on Monday he celebrated the decision by pouring Veuve Clicquot Champagne over the head of his newest editor.
Standing in The Wall Street Journal’s newsroom on the sixth floor of News Corporation’s New York headquarters, Mr. Murdoch, chairman and chief executive, toasted Gerard Baker. Mr. Baker will take over as managing editor of The Wall Street Journal and editor in chief of Dow Jones & Company, positions held by Robert Thomson, who was named chief executive of the separate publishing company.
The publishing company will retain the name News Corporation and will consist of newspapers, including The Journal and The New York Post, and HarperCollins. Mr. Murdoch will serve as chairman.
The bigger company will be called Fox Group and will include Fox Broadcasting, 20th Century Fox and cable channels like Fox News and FX. Chase Carey, News Corporation’s president and chief operating officer, will maintain that title at Fox Group. Mr. Murdoch will serve as chief executive and chairman and his youngest son, James R. Murdoch, who left his post in Britain in the midst of the phone hacking scandal, will serve as Fox Group’s deputy chief operating officer.
But Reuters makes an interesting point about the moves:
News Corp did not disclose any financial details related to the spin off, such as how much cash and debt will be ascribed to the new publishing company, or appoint a board of directors.
Also absent from Monday’s announcement was any mention of Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s eldest son, who News Corp watchers and industry experts thought might be recruited back into the family business, given his previous success as publisher of the New York Post.
His ascension comes at a difficult time for print media. Newspapers face tough challenges as advertisers look elsewhere and people increasingly prefer smartphones and tablets to ink and paper.
While Thomson, a native Australian, is a long time newspaper executive, including U.S. editor of the Financial Times and editor of the Times of London, his experience has been mostly in the newsroom.
Now, however, he will have to decide what to do with the financially struggling New York Post, whether to seek a merger partner for Harper Collins and if the new company will acquire U.S. newspapers that could come onto the market, such as the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.
This last paragraph of decisions is a lot to navigate. The media industry is still struggling to find a financial model that works and history has shown that getting bigger isn’t necessarily the way to make it work.
But analysts are looking to see what the company will do next, whether it’s paying a dividend, shedding assets, or acquiring another property. Either way, my bet is that Rupert Murdoch will emerge the winner — with or without the champagne to pour around the newsroom.
Dow Jones CEO Fenwick’s note to employees
by Chris Roush
Dow Jones & Co. CEO Lex Fenwick sent the following message to the company employees on the appointment of Gerard Baker as the new managing editor of The Wall Street Journal:
The Wall Street Journal’s success over the last years boils down to what we have that our competitors covet most – the best team of journalists and news professionals ever assembled in newsrooms around the world. That’s why I’m delighted to announce that one of the most transformative leaders in The Wall Street Journal’s history, Robert Thomson, moves over to lead the new publishing entity for News Corporation. He’ll be replaced from among us by Gerry Baker, who currently serves as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Journal. Attached you will find today’s announcements in full. The transition will take place on January 1, 2013.
Building upon what was already the world’s leading business and finance news organization, Robert steered the team at the Journal and Newswires to offer expanded content to ever more subscribers. We have not only become the largest newspaper in the United States, we’ve undergone a digital transformation and are expanding relentlessly across continents and countries.
Throughout his career, Gerry has held responsibilities across the full journalistic spectrum – from print to digital, from reporter to editor and from U.S. commentator to foreign correspondent. With his extensive international experience and deep journalistic biography, I am thrilled to be working with Gerry as we take the Journal and Newswires to even greater heights.
WSJ’s Thomson expected to be named CEO of company
by Chris Roush
News Corp. plans to name Robert Thomson, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal and editor in chief of Dow Jones, as chief executive of its publishing company as early as next week, according to people familiar with the matter.
John Jannarone of The Journal writes, “Other details, such as senior executive appointments, board members, and the name of the publishing company may also be announced but a final decision hasn’t been made, these people said.
“Gerard Baker, currently Mr. Thomson’s deputy, is expected to succeed him as managing editor of the Journal.
“News Corp. is in the process of splitting into two listed companies, one containing its entertainment assets, such as the 20th Century Fox film studio and Fox News cable channel, and the other housing publishing assets, including Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, its British and Australian newspapers, HarperCollins book publishing and Australian television assets. The company is expected to complete the split by the end of June.
“News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch said at the company’s shareholder meeting in October that details of the publishing company’s management and board makeup would be announced before the end of the year. News Corp. has previously said that Mr. Murdoch would remain chairman and CEO of the entertainment company but only chairman of the publishing company.”
Read more here.
Two reporters named to WSJ/Dow Jones Nordic team
by Chris Roush
John Stoll, the Nordic bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, sent out the following staff announcement on Thursday:
I am pleased to announce the addition of Juhana Rossi and Clemens Bomsdorf to the Nordic squad, representing two strong acquisitions designed to further boost the quality and heft of the stories we deliver as a combined bureau to readers of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.
A top-notch and respected journalist, Juhana joins us after serving for many years as a superstar reporter at the Helsingin Sanomat, the largest daily newspaper in Finland. He has also worked as editor at Parnasso, the nation’s largest literary magazine. In addition, Juhana has translated four novels from English into Finnish, including John Fante’s “Ask the Dust.” He spends his spare time reading, shooting pool and – like many great Finns – splitting wood.
Starting January 1, Juhana will be our reporter in Helsinki – home of those beloved Angry Birds – and will keep a close eye on the always-intriguing political narrative unfolding in the only euro zone nation in the Nordics. He’ll also be a key player on the team documenting the saga of decline taking place at Nokia, while also keeping an eye on a variety of sectors underpinning the Finnish economy – including tech, forestry, energy and mining. And of course, we expect plenty of interesting only-in-Finland types of yarns to float from Juhana’s pen.
Clemens, meanwhile, joined us in October as our new Copenhagen correspondent in the Nordic WSJ/DJN bureau. Clemens brings with him eight years of experience in the Nordics and Baltics, during which time he worked as correspondent for FT Deutschland, Die Welt and other publications. He has also written extensively about the European art scene. A native of Germany who spent part of his college years in Sweden, Clemens speaks multiple languages and has a deep understanding of the region we cover.
Clemens will be covering an array of stories that matter to our readers, including some of Denmark’s heaviest corporate hitters – shipping giant Maersk, toy maker Lego, insulin provider Novo Nordisk, the Carlsberg beer company and troubled wind-turbine maker Vestas. Denmark’s cultural scene, political developments, economy and banking sector will also keep Clemens busy. Skiing and reading are two activities that occupy his free time.
WSJ/Dow Jones seeks oil reporter for London
by Chris Roush
Ben Winkley, assistant news editor for the EMEA Oil Markets team in London, sent out the following job posting:
Dow Jones Newswires is seeking a reporter to join the EMEA Oil Markets team, providing content across our real-time, online, print and multimedia platforms from the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires London bureau.
This is a beat with ample scope for broad, creative coverage of the meat and bones of the oil industry, in an arena where market theory meets the reality of filling up a car’s fuel tank or turning on the lights.
The core focus is oil markets, where the reporter will be expected to draw from existing sources and develop new ones to produce granular coverage of oil movements and pricing from the region’s main crude and refined products markets.
The reporter will also be expected to understand how these markets react to political, social and economic issues, and identify trends to develop ideas for longer-form features.
The ideal candidate will already have a broad understanding of the oil markets and how movements in the pricing of crude and refined products affect wider markets. We are seeking somebody to cover this beat aggressively, creatively and in depth, with scoops for all platforms, features for online and print, and regular blog posts and video contributions.
Anyone interested should contact EMEA Oil Markets Assistant News Editor Ben Winkley at ben.winkley@dowjones.com or +44 20 7842 9475.
