Taking 'Wall Street' from the Journal
After 119 years in the Wall Street area of Lower Manhattan, Rupert Murdoch is planning to relocate the Wall Street Journal to Midtown. Jeremy Hobson reports the move doesn't seem to bother people as much as changes to the paper.
A woman sits outside of the Wall Street Journal office in Manhattan. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
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Scott Jagow: How do you take Wall Street out of the Wall Street Journal? This isn't a riddle. According to the New York Times, Rupert Murdoch is planning to move the Journal to Midtown Manhattan. Maybe even to the same building as the Fox News Channel. Jeremy Hobson has more.
Jeremy Hobson: The Journal has called the Wall Street area of Lower Manhattan home for 119 years. But moving doesn't seem to bother many reporters who would have an easier commute, and maybe better lunch options in Midtown.
And it doesn't bother media critic Dan Kennedy, who writes the Media Nation blog:
Dan Kennedy: I don't think anybody has said that the New Yorker suffered by being moved into the Conde Nast building.
On the other hand, says Kennedy, Murdoch's reported plans to add a sports page and a lifestyles of the rich supplement are troubling.
Kennedy: The goal that Murdoch has seems to be to turn the Journal into more and more of a general interest newspaper that will compete head-to-head with the New York Times, and he may very well end up harming its coverage of business and finance.
That fear was raised when Murdoch acquired the paper's parent company, Dow Jones, for $5 billion last year.
I'm Jeremy Hobson for Marketplace.
