Marcus Brauchli could have looked forward to a pleasant summer vacation before digging into his new job in September as The Washington Post’s new executive editor, but instead he will punch the clock like the rest of us.

In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, the former Wall Street Journal managing editor said he plans to wrap up his consulting work with News Corp on a project in Asia. We don’t know the details, but it was part of an agreement tied to his resignation from the Journal after News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch let him know that his services at the paper would no longer be needed.

“It’s very interesting and productive,” was all Brauchli would say about it.

He reportedly took home a decent severance package for resigning only about a year after Dow Jones’s previous management named him as the Journal’s top editor. Some reports say it was $3 million to $5 million. Brauchli would not comment on the amount, nor would he say whether he’s keeping it now that he has a new job and won’t be enriching News Corp’s Asian business.

We also asked him about what he told Murdoch and new Journal editor Robert Thomson about his prospects at the Post. “Of course, I kept News Corp informed,” he said. He did not say if Murdoch or Thomson had any words of advice for him.

(Photo courtesy of The Washington Post)

Although Marcus Brauchli’s decision to resign as the top editor at The Wall Street Journal — announced on Tuesday — did not require the approval of the paper’s editorial integrity committee, they will step in when it’s time to hire the next one. 

The committee was designed to safeguard editorial independence by approving or vetoing the hiring choices in case its new owner, News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch, attempts to use his candidate to evade a solemn promise to keep the newspaper’s editorial dignity intact. It was one of the few safeguards left behind by its previous owners, the Bancroft family, as a condition for agreeing to the Murdoch’s takeover.

How effective will the committee actually be? We asked former Dow Jones board member Christopher Bancroft on Tuesday.

“That’s a lovely fantasy,” he said. “I told the family [at the time] that it’s window dressing. It is a lovely fantasy to imagine you can have a board that will take care of editorial issues at The Wall Street Journal.”

Jeff Bercovici and Portfolio.com got a similar comment from another family member, Jane Cox MacElree:

“I’m not surprised,” says Jane Cox MacElree, who controlled 15 percent of the family’s Dow Jones shares. “This is why I was not in favor of selling the paper to that man. Words mean nothing to him, unless they’re his.”

What do you think about the committee? Five people getting $100,000 to act out a fantasy, or five guardians of truth, justice and journalism?

(Photo: Reuters)