Wall Street Journal elevates leader of paper’s redesign
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NEW YORK — Emphasizing the importance of new media to its future, the Wall Street Journal Wednesday named as its managing editor 45-year-old Marcus W. Brauchli, who led the redesign unveiled this year to save money and more sharply define the missions of the newspaper’s print and online versions.
Publisher L. Gordon Crovitz’s selection of Brauchli ended a two-way competition -- “the bake-off,” as some staffers facetiously called it -- to succeed 16-year veteran Paul E. Steiger in perhaps the most influential job in business news.
Under corporate policy at parent Dow Jones & Co., Steiger, 64, faces mandatory retirement from the company by the end of this year. In the interim, he will hold the title of editor at large.
Brauchli was given the nod over Paul Ingrassia, 56, who won a Pulitzer Prize as an automotive reporter and was named last July to the new post of vice president for news strategy at Dow Jones. Ingrassia previously was president of Dow Jones Newswires.
Brauchli’s elevation was popular in the newsroom, prompting “great applause” from reporters and editors when it was announced Wednesday during the Dow Jones annual meeting, according to a reporter who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak.
“Marcus is really at the nexis of the transition we face,” the reporter said. “He’s comfortable in the digital world as well as in print.”
Crovitz, in an interview Wednesday, said that in addition to Brauchli’s career as a foreign correspondent reporting from 20 countries in 15 years, he proved himself “a visionary” in tackling the redesign known as Journal 3.0. The new print edition is narrower, saving millions of dollars in newsprint costs, but it also recast itself as more analytical and forward-looking, in contrast to the website, which is oriented to breaking news and graphics.
Crovitz said the success of the new product was affirmed by the Journal’s latest audited figures, which buck industry trends by showing an increase in print circulation, particularly in individually-paid sales. He said the online product recently hit a record 931,000 paying subscribers, making it the Web’s largest paid site.
Brauchli praised the well-regarded Steiger as “a giant act to follow. He defined the Wall Street Journal as we know it.”
During Steiger’s tenure as managing editor, the Journal expanded from two daily sections to four, added a Saturday edition and won 16 Pulitzer Prizes.
Brauchli said the development of online journalism, integrating video, sound and print, “magnifies the opportunity to enhance the coverage we offer.”
A graduate of Columbia University, he is married to Maggie Farley, the Los Angeles Times’ United Nations bureau chief.
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