By: E&P Staff Dow Jones is restructuring its news coverage in a way that will touch the desks of Dow Jones Newswires, WSJ.com, and The Wall Street Journal.
A memo released today from Marcus Brauchli, deputy managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, Bill Grueskin, managing editor, WSJ.com, and Neal Lipschutz, managing editor of Dow Jones Newswires, (obtained via the Romenesko media news site) addressed all Dow Jones news staff about the results of a project commissioned by executives last summer to study the effectiveness of how news is produced and distributed.
The outcome: A newly created group that will ?coordinate and handle coverage of major announcement-driven and breaking U.S. corporate news for Newswires, the Online Journal, and in many cases, the print Journals,? the memo said.
The reorganization will help reporters at all of Dow Jones news properties avoid overlap in coverage and will mean news will break on its digital properties even more so.
Starting in January, Newswires will be responsible for all breaking corporate spot news and write-throughs, in addition to the rewrite of press releases for the online, international and U.S. print editions of the Journal.
?This will bring significant changes for everyone involved in the news process,? the memo said.
Staffers at WSJ.com will have more time to concentrate on ?blogs, infographics, videos, podcasts, and additional sidebars or other elements that add to readers? understanding of business and world news.?
At the print edition, editors said the change in structure will mean that reporters will have more time to work on ?longer-form journalism.? Reporters ?will be expected to follow announcements and conference calls, to read the stories produced by the news desk and to look for ways they can add real value or analysis,? the memo said.
That ?value added material? will not be held for the next day?s print edition; rather it will be distributed through the paper?s Web site or other digital properties.
Jeff Sutherland, corporate news editor for the Journal since 2002, has been tapped to head up the new group. He will report to Grueskin. Additionally, Sophia McFarland is overseeing a new display feature that will start in January in the Journal called Earnings Digest.
The timing of the announcement coincides with the Jan. 2 launch of the newly redesigned version of the Wall Street Journal, when for the first time in the paper?s 117 history, the Journal?s web width will be drastically reduced from 60 inches to 48 inches.
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