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)

News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch dominated headlines again on Tuesday as not one, but at least three news items rippled across the media world.

As shareholders of rival paper The New York Times assemble on Tuesday morning for its annual meeting held at the company’s glittering new headquarters near Times Square, Murdoch took steps to accelerate the remaking of the Wall Street Journal in his image. WSJ is set to announce today the resignation of its managing editor Marcus Brauchli, who is leaving 11 months into the job and just a few months following the closing of Murdoch’s $5 billion purchase of Dow Jones. Murdoch appointee and publisher Robert Thomson will take over the top editorial spot in the interim, according to news reports. 

Meanwhile, News Corp deal makers across town appear poised to reach a deal to relieve real estate magnate and Tribune Chief Sam Zell of his Newsday newspaper for about $580 million to create a joint venture to combine Murdoch’s New York Post and other assets with Tribune’s paper. The Newsday deal is expected to cut about $50 million in annual losses at the Post. 

Then, quietly, Murdoch left the door open to a possible joint bid with Microsoft to buy Yahoo during a question and answer session at an event in which he was honored. Brauchli, the New York Times reported, attended the same event in Washington DC.

(Time.com) (WSJ) (NYT) (Reuters)

Keep an eye on:

• Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman may be conspiring to eliminate CBS Chief Les Moonves. (New York Post )
• Bambi’s getting company. Disney launches a new nature film label, Disneynature. (Reuters)
• MySpace snubs Fox for NBC News in new political site. (Hollywood Reporter)

(Photo: Reuters)

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)

Media titans John Malone and Barry Diller knew they had their fair share of disagreements over the years, but like many couples heading to divorce, they apparently needed someone else to tell them that.

Enter Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Vascellaro.

The media industry read with rapt interest her story in October that put in plain language how much tension had built up between the two over their partnership in IAC/InterActiveCorp. 

But as the two moguls duke it out in Delaware court this week, they keep invoking that story, day after day, as the moment that sent their relationship past the point of no return. 

Diller apparently understood the story as grounds to endorse a control structure for a spin-off of IAC businesses that would dilute the grip of Malone’s Liberty Media over the units. And that is what brought them to court today.
 
“It was kind of a verification in his mind they had gone over a significant line and the possibility of doing a transaction beneficial to both sides was becoming highly unlikely,” IAC Vice Chairman Victor Kaufman said when asked by Liberty’s lawyers.
 
IAC’s lawyers made liberal use of the story as well, asking Liberty CEO Greg Maffei whether he orchestrated the original interviews with himself and a usually press-shy Malone to send a message to Diller. They asked Maffei whether he tried to influence that story by flying the New York-based reporter out to Denver and talking up his views of Diller over several hours of travel time.
 
Maffei rebuffed that idea, saying  he didn’t come up with the idea for the flight, that there were other people on the plane and most of the time they spent playing the card game “Oh, Heck”:
 
[We asked Dow Jones about the flight. Here's their statement: "The Wall Street Journal attempted to reimburse Liberty for the flight, but the company subsequently returned the check. In keeping with our guidelines, we still intend to reimburse Liberty. We stand by the fairness and accuracy of our story."]
 
After it appeared, Malone said he had already guessed Diller’s reaction:
“I thought Barry’s not going to like this when he sees it. (Did you call Diller?) I should have but I did not. Because when I read it, it came across not the way I would have liked it to come across. 
    
In the end I did call. It was roughly two months later. (Apparently Diller told Malone of his one share, one vote plan during that call)”

(Photo: Reuters / Maffei in Sun Valley 2007)