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)

Former Merrill Lynch newspaper publisher analyst Lauren Rich Fine said something cautiously optimistic about newspapers at the Dow Jones Media and Money conference on Wednesday: “Most of these companies can still be decent businesses. They just have to rethink their expectations. … Eventually, people will demand quality information, and they will pay for it.”

You can quibble with whether that’s optimistic if you like. To be fair, it’s a nice way of saying that newspapers will no longer be equipped with a license to mint their own coin, and that it’s Wall Street that has to get used to it. After all, as long as Wall Street doesn’t get used to it, you see stock moves like these today:

Gannett down 10 percent, McClatchy down 13 percent, New York Times down 8 percent (To be fair, Journal Register is up 50 percent this afternoon to an ultra-cheap 1.5 cents per share on news likely known only to itself)

Fine, who retired from Merrill and now teaches at Kent State University and was just hired to media blog PaidContent.org, made her comment on the same day that Goldman Sachs analyst Peter Appert — negative on the newspaper business for more than three years — dared to put a time on when U.S. newspaper publishers might see fortunes improve.

Here’s a line from his research note on Wednesday:

Newspaper companies are NOT going out of business (although highly leveraged companies will face particularly acute challenges). Ultimately, we believe newspapers will re-emerge as healthy and dominant players in the local media marketplace as their business models evolve into a hybrid print and online offering. Margins, however, will be significantly below the 20%+ levels historically achieved, and it will likely take another five years before online revenues are sufficiently large to offset secular declines in the print business. Accordingly, we continue to recommend an underweight position in the group.

Again — cautiously optimistic.

Another noteworthy moment at the conference was when Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Robert Thomson responded to the question of whether newspapers should be run as non-profit entities to help them survive:

“I think it’s fair to say that a lot of newspapers already were not for profit.”

The audience liked that one.

The panel also included comments from Fine, Thomson, Tribune innovation chief Lee Abrams and others on whether the U.S. government should bail out newspapers as a way to preserve the future of the press and its role in U.S. society. Read PaidContent for the writeup, though it’s safe to conclude before clicking on the link that the answer was “No.”

Also see Portfolio.com where Mixed Media reporter Jeff Bercovici wrote about Abrams waxing revolutionary about Tribune Co. He also wrote about Robert Thomson’s remark on Wall Street Journal newsstand circulation being up 20 percent (he explains the frame of reference in which Thomson made that remark.)

(Photo: Reuters)

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)