The Wall Street Journal, ever on the hunt for new ways to please its readers and new ways to make money (and what, we ask, is wrong with that?), will launch a new, pricier version this November. Called “The Wall Street Journal Professional Edition,” it is designed for business readers who want more than what the daily newspaper and website provide on their own.

Essentially, it is the Journal’s daily offering, with reports from Dow Jones Newswires and a reservoir of news and information from Factiva, the news archive that Dow Jones owns — and a bunch more stuff:

• Information from more than 17,000 global sources, some of which are not available to the public.
• A one-year archive of Factiva’s global business sources and a two-year archive of wsj.com content.
• More than 30 industry pages, managed by Dow Jones editors
• Six industry sections managed by Journal editors who select news and information for readers on pharmaceuticals, healthcare, energy, media and marketing, telecommunications and technology.
• Personalized homepages and news alerts for when things break.

Dow Jones plans to sell the edition to businesses, which would make it available to employees through “site licenses” (ie, your business buys a license that makes the professional edition available to X number of people for a price to be determined). In January, it will be available to people for $49 a month, or just under $600 a year, said Clare Hart, head of Dow Jones’s Enterprise Media Group, which oversees Dow Jones Newswires, Factiva and Dow Jones Indexes.

So why have a professional edition for a paper that is arguably already for professionals? According to Hart, it is an attempt to recognize the middle ground between “regular” readers (like my mom) and financial clients who use the super-charged “terminals” from Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg that provide news along with sophisticated and deep financial information.

“It’s a response to what customers are driving us toward. Customers want the simplicity of a consumer application with the sophistication of an enterprise application,” Hart said.

Robert Thomson, who edits the Journal and oversees Dow Jones’s editorial operations, offered a hypothetical example of an oil service company employee in Boise who might not be in the market for a Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters computer, but needs more information than he or she would get in the paper.

“You’re interested in oil import prices, you’re interested in currencies,” Thomson said. “To be honest, it would be hard to find you as a client on the professional end.” With WSJ’s professional edition, he said, that employee could customize a feed that would send an alert when something happens in China that affects oil prices.

On another level, the Journal is trying to capture readers for whom paper is not enough, while financial professional-grade data feeds offer too much at too high a price, and don’t look all that pleasing to the eye. The information that readers get would be more sophisticated, but presented in an easy-to-view way, just like the Journal or the Times or most other news outlets present it to readers on their Web pages now.

It sounds like a promising introduction and an effective way to give readers a more comprehensive look at Dow Jones’s information offerings than they might have gotten before. But how will it play? Company officials won’t share projections.

It might be that Dow Jones, now part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, already has a bunch of happy customers who don’t need to be made happier. It’s hard to say how many untapped readers there might be for this new service, either through business licenses or through individual subscriptions. If nothing else, it’s an experiment done at a time when news outlets need to experiment even more than they are.

(Photo: Reuters)

USA Today and The Wall Street Journal aren’t waiting for Oct. 26, the day North American newspapers report their latest circulation numbers, to begin tussling over which one has the biggest paper.

Editor & Publisher made the first move on Friday when Jennifer Saba reported that USA Today was set to report that circulation fell “17% to 1.88 million for the six months ending September 2009, a drop of about 390,000 copies. The decline could also threaten USA Today’s position as the No. 1 newspaper in the country by circulation.” The news came in a memo from USA Today Publisher, David Hunke, to his workers.

Spicy stuff, considering that when we write about its owner, Gannett, we say it is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher that publishes USA Today, the largest newspaper by circulation.

The Wall Street Journal’s Shira Ovide wrote up the news too, adding this: “After USA Today’s memo, the Journal said it is now the largest U.S. newspaper by weekday circulation.” Andrew Vanacore at The Associated Press, featured the Jornal echoing that statement: “Dow Jones, the Journal’s parent company, declined to give out the newspaper’s circulation figures for the period, but spokesman Robert Christie said, ‘The Journal is now the largest newspaper by circulation.’”

We wrote up the story too, going along the same lines. The next day, however, we got this statement from USA Today’s communications vp Ed Cassidy – a bit too late to run it as an update to our old story. Still, it piqued my interest in a big way because it doesn’t go along with the lines of what we reported earlier:

We are confident that even with this latest economic impact, USA TODAY will remain the nation’s number one newpsaper in total print circulation when the ABC statements are released October 26th.

So how do we figure this? It’s hard to conclude when the numbers haven’t come out yet. I suspect that both papers can make the claim to be No. 1 because the Journal is counting copies to subscribers who get only the online edition as adding to the total number of print subscribers. Newspaper publishers argue over whether those copies “count,” but it seems like they should considering that people pay for Web access in the same way that they do for print.

Or am I wrong? Should circulation — a key measure for businesses of whether and how much to spend on advertising in newspapers — not count online subscriptions? I’m all ears.

(Reuters photo: The Wall Street Journal)

The Wall Street Journal has been making plenty of hay about its rising circulation and the growing number of people online who are using the site, but parent company News Corp is cutting costs as the whole media business suffers from the recession. To that end, here is Dow Jones Chief Executive Les Hinton’s Monday memo on some benefits cutbacks that the company is instituting.

Dear colleagues:

Many companies are resetting their benefits in reaction to the economic challenges of the moment. Dow Jones has felt these same challenges and our business is far from immune to them. Unlike other media companies we have been able to avoid making changes driven by short-term necessity.

What we have done over the past year-and-a-half is to undertake a deep review of our entire benefits program. That review is complete, and today we are announcing a major change in our retirement programs. We are modernizing our approach to retirement savings and aligning our program with the market, News Corp. and our view of the future for Dow Jones.

Key changes include:

The Money Purchase Plan will be frozen as of July 3, 2009. The 401(k) Savings Plan will be enhanced. The net effect will be a lower rate of company contributions.

The retiree healthcare subsidy will be curtailed for most employees effective Jan. 1, 2010. Current retirees or those employees who on Jan. 1, 2010, will be age 50 with at least 5 years of service or have 20 years of service regardless of age will continue to be eligible for a subsidy in a revised retiree healthcare plan.

More details about the benefit program changes can be found here.

The new retirement plans will apply to all non-IAPE* staff in the U.S. We intend to seek the same programs when we enter collective-bargaining negotiations with IAPE this year.

This change allows us to continue to provide a valuable benefit while managing expenses prudently. At the same time, we intend to reinvest some of the savings we achieve in new health and wellness benefits to be introduced this year. We want to give Dow Jones employees - whose ages, family situations, and career profiles are more varied than ever before - increased choice and enhanced coverage while providing individuals with better ways to manage healthcare costs. You will receive more information about the new health and wellness benefits later in 2009.

These changes strengthen this company. Comprehensive, competitive and up-to-date, our benefits programs now position us well for the future. That is our focus.

Best,

Les

* IAPE is the union that represents some Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones staff. The union has to agree to the changes to make them stick for its members. This is similar to when The New York Times Co cut pay by up to 5 percent for many of its workers. The union that represents New York Times rank-and-file workers, for example, had to approve the proposal, whereas the company could simply impose the pay cut for non-unionized workers.

(Photo: Reuters)

News Corp President and Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin’s perks after he leaves News Corp at the end of June are basic compared with some legendary golden parachutes, though they’re still worth more money than I make in a year. Or 10 years for that matter.

In addition to his Fox studios production deal, Chernin’s creature comforts include 50 hours on News Corp’s jet ($1.65 million value), corporate car ($210,000 value) and possibly personal secretary services ($1.05 million value). See the proxy statement for more details.

That might not send the image of a cost-cutting corporate culture at a time when News Corp’s stock is down 70 percent and the bottom looks further away as its most can-do executive quits. Then again, maybe Chernin’s doing the right thing, all things considered. Check out this little-noticed excerpt from Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch’s memo to employees:

Achieving our ambitions will require change and renewal. So throughout 2009, I will continue to work closely with all of our companies to make sure that we are organized and resourced in the best way to take advantage of this extraordinary point in time. We will press our advantages and invest in our great franchises. And, of course, we will keep our eyes on big prizes, some of which may arise only once in a generation. [Emphasis ours -- ed.]

Wait a minute. Didn’t he already do that with The Wall Street Journal and its parent company Dow Jones? What’s it going to be next? Michael Wolff, who wrote the Murdoch tome “The Man Who Owns the News,” published late last year, thinks that Murdoch has it bad for The New York Times. Of course, the Times’s ruling family, led by Arthur Sulzberger Jr, has said the company and its legendary paper are not for sale.

But then again, it’s a generational issue — just like the word Murdoch uses in his memo. Younger Sulzbergers can’t be that happy that the TImes suspended the dividend that some of them depend on. Could they put enough pressure on their elders to sell? Maybe they could if Murdoch decided that some of his $5 billion would be money well spent on enticing the family with a larger-than-life offer, just like the Times. He said he’s not interested in becoming more of a “public enemy” by chasing the paper, but even media moguls are allowed to change their minds.

With investors in News Corp getting more annoyed for Murdoch’s attachment to newspapers (including the New York Post where he just axed longtime gossip columnist Liz Smith), it’s easy to imagine that Chernin — News Corp’s ambassador to Wall Street — might not be able to defend one more once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

One thing’s for sure: Just thinking about this keeps a media reporter up at night.

(Photo: Murdoch on the left, Chernin on the right. Reuters)

We and the rest of the media world that covered News Corp and Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of Dow Jones & Co had no shortage of reporters at The Wall Street Journal telling us how bad life was going to get. Among the complaints was the paper's increasing focus on politics and non-business news. Wasn't this "diluting the brand" as they say in mediaspeak?

Not so, according to Robert Thomson, the former Times of London editor who now edits the Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. Business news now is concentrated in the B section of the paper (B for Business, yes, it works.), and Journal reporters are not only with the program, they're showing a willingness to try things differently.

"It's been fascinating. There was a presumption that people would be unwilling to change," Thomson told us at the Reuters Media Summit. "There has been an innate enthusiasm to develop the paper, particularly to develop the relationship between the paper, WSJ.com, Dow Jones Newswires and Marketwatch."

It's also a good attitude to take when nearly every other news outlet you might work for is cutting jobs.

(Photo: Reuters)

The WSJ.com’s new look will go live on Tuesday morning, and it won’t look much like the online Journal you’ve come to know and love. (Or hate, if you’re among its competitors.)

The standard blue-and-white look of the old homepage — as seen in the bottom picture — will be gone. Instead, there will be a whiter-looking page with “champagne” offsets for the “What’s News” section and the top. (A “clean, well-lit environment” was the operating principle, according to WSJ Online Executive Editor Alan Murray).

Other changes include a navigation bar across the top of the page instead of down the left side. Community pages invite more interactivity from readers of the site, though people are required to use their real names to post.

Wall Street Journal Digital Network President Gordon McLeod wouldn’t say how much the redesign cost, but did say it was a “substantial investment,” one aimed not only at building subscriber rolls but also trying to get more non-subscribers to visit as well to persuade advertisers to keep buying space on the site.

Whether design is the key to making that happen, no one can say, but it can’t hurt to renovate every once in a while. It does tend to keep your name in the headlines…

The rap on The Wall Street Journal, especially among those who get edited for a living there, is that the editing process could use a little streamlining. It looks like that’s about to happen, judging by Thursday’s memo from top editor Robert Thomson. This is part of a series of personnel changes taking place at the Journal since News Corp bought Dow Jones last year, including the resignations of top editor Marcus Brauchli and top U.S. editor Bill Grueskin:

I am pleased to announce significant changes to the editorial leadership of The Wall Street Journal, changes which will expedite decision-making and give increased authority and responsibility to reporters and bureau chiefs. These changes will take place in tandem with the creation of a central news desk that will allow significantly enhanced co-operation between print, web and Newswires journalists, in New York and around the world. At the heart of our new structure will be a National, International and Enterprise Team, a triumvirate which will report directly to me and to whom the bureau chiefs will report.

Here are the moves among the most senior editors, effective next month:

- Matt Murray, general news editor, becomes national editor.

- Nikhil Deogun, Money & Investing section editor, becomes international editor.

- Mike Williams, page one editor, broadens duties to include investigative reporting, “A-heds” and “leders.”

Those three, Thomson wrote, will streamline commissioning and editing decisions get a central role in the production and presentation of copy for the paper and the website.

Other changes:

- Mike Miller, deputy managing editor, also becomes senior deputy managing editor and runs the paper in Thomson’s place if he is “otherwise engaged.”

- Cathy Panagoulias, assistant managing editor, becomes a deputy managing editor and gets more say in administrative support for bureau chiefs and hires.

- Jim Pensiero, vice president for special projects, becomes deputy managing editor for operations, and oversees the upcoming new publishing system (we heard it’s Methode), and runs the Journal’s move next year to News Corp headquarters in midtown Manhattan.

- Alix Freedman gets expanded authority over the paper’s ethical and journalistic standards.

- Alan Murray remains as executive editor of the online Journal.

- Dan Hertzberg, deputy managing editor, oversees the European and Asian editions

- Reg Chua becomes senior assistant managing editor and oversees the design team.

We’re not sure how this all will translate into streamlining and how this will give reporters and bureau chiefs more authority, but in all fairness, this hasn’t even gone into effect yet. We’re also curious about names not mentioned in the memo, like page one editor Laurie Hays. She didn’t return a phone call, but we’ll find out soon enough. She’s leaving, according to a second memo — going to Bloomberg as executive editor for company news. Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

The appointment of Hays, who during a 23-year career at the newspaper was a Moscow-based correspondent, bureau chief in Atlanta and New York, National News Editor and, most recently, Deputy Managing Editor for Investigative Reporting, “brings exceptional experience in managing beat reporting to our 2,300 journalists in 65 countries,” said Matthew Winkler, Editor-in-Chief of Bloomberg News. 

On a separate note, catch Rupert Murdoch’s comments in Cannes about making the Journal the best paper in the world. Article on the Guardian’s website.

Some Wall Street Journal staff have been grousing lately over the paper’s increasing devotion to political and general news because they worry that it will move business news off the front page — something that seems inimical to a paper with the name “Wall Street” in it.

Not to worry, says Dow Jones & Co Chief Executive Les Hinton, business news is still what the Journal is all about. Here’s what Hinton said in an interview in the March 27 edition of The Australian (also owned by Murdoch’s News Corp):

“Whatever happens to the design, the key thing is we will put more national news in it and more political news in it,” he said.

“But that will be through additional pages because what we will never do is forsake its role of being, above all, the world’s business newspaper.

“That is its place in the world, it is the reason it’s prospered.”

And as for a free WSJ.com? Don’t bet on it:

“You’d never say never, but it doesn’t seem like a logical thing to do … The initial thought was if we were not having a pay barrier, we could grow very quickly and get the resulting advertising … That frankly was probably a little bit simplistic because … it has over a million subscribers. … Without going into detail, we get tens of millions in revenue from it.”

We came to a similar conclusion a few months ago.

(Photo: Reuters)