War at the Wall Street Journal (28 page)

Then he laid out for Brauchli his vision for the paper, one he had shared broadly during the deal negotiations: "The
New York Times
sets the national agenda, and we should," Murdoch said, already slipping easily into the role of owner. Brauchli smiled imperceptibly at Murdoch's mention of "we." He wasn't used to the concept of him and Murdoch being on the same side. Brauchli wasn't surprised that Murdoch wanted to attack the
New York Times;
he had received ample warning of that desire. But the
Journal
's sensibility was more subdued, and strategic.
Journal
editors picked their shots; Murdoch wanted all-out war. Traditionally, the paper had been a newsroom of midwesterners in the center of New York, a group happy to exist outside the glamour of the city. The
Journal
was well read in flyover country and in the investment banking corridors of Wall Street, but among the literati and the culture set of Manhattan, it was viewed with a certain disdain, almost as if it were a trade paper. The reporters and editors often thought that was part of the beauty of the place. The
Journal
told its readers stories they never knew they wanted to hear. The paper revered surprise, running a quirky, often hilarious story every day down the middle of the front page, internally called the "A-Hed." The
Journal
's investigative reporters often remarked how welcomed they were by corporate executives, who thought that the paper was a friendly outlet. One of the paper's great specialties was the "tick-tock," often riveting reconstructions of significant events that had occurred months earlier. Almost to a fault, the
Journal
avoided using the influence of its news pages to full effect.

Murdoch wanted to wipe all that away. He wanted the
Journal
to lead the media pack. It was antithetical to the
Journal
ethos. "Even if you're leading the pack, you're still part of the pack," Peter Kann, the
Journal
's former CEO, liked to say. "If there's something everyone is talking about, that should be on the front page of the
Wall Street Journal
," Murdoch told his aides.

He continued his list of priorities for Brauchli. "We should break more news," he said. Already Murdoch had planned to add four pages to the paper to accommodate the expanded political and general news he wanted to see in it. While Murdoch had been sipping cocktails on Diller's yacht, a bridge had collapsed in Minneapolis, killing 13 rush-hour commuters and injuring 145. The
New York Times
and the
Washington Post
had splashed the story on their front pages. At the
Journal
, however, it had appeared in a 117-word brief item in the "World-Wide" column, a list on the paper's front page where the
Journal
relegated non-business news. "We should cover the bridge collapse in Minneapolis," he continued. "It's a big infrastructure story. I could see that on the cover of 'Marketplace' [the paper's second section]." Brauchli wanted to point out that the very morning of their breakfast, the paper carried a lengthy story on the front of the "Marketplace" section discussing how the collapse had revived the infrastructure debate in the country. Murdoch either missed that story, or it had come too late. When the
Times
had a color photo of the bridge collapse the day after the event, the
Journal
's brief mention was insufficient, Murdoch felt.

Talking about the paper's international coverage, Murdoch was less precise. He wanted to beef up the European and Asian editions of the
Journal
but didn't have specific prescriptions for how to do so, and he wondered aloud if the paper should combine its foreign bureaus with those of the
Times
of London, another of Murdoch's "quality" papers. Brauchli knew that even a cowed
Journal
newsroom would be appalled by the suggestion. He pushed back, suggesting that the two papers could have access to one another's content and share certain stories but only if they were properly labeled to identify the difference between
Journal
content and articles from the
Times
of London. He wouldn't become "we" so quickly.

Murdoch spent much of the meeting recounting News Corp.'s strategy. Brauchli asked Murdoch if he had decided on a CEO structure for Dow Jones, and Murdoch said he hadn't thought about it yet. He delivered a damning pronouncement about Zannino: "He's not a media man. He doesn't know media." Like everyone granted a moment with a powerful ruler, Brauchli attempted to save his friends. He encouraged Murdoch to get to know
Journal
publisher Gordon Crovitz and Todd Larsen, chief operating officer for half of Dow Jones—two executives Brauchli liked and hoped wouldn't be fired. Murdoch said he would, just as soon as he got back from spending the month of August on his boat in the Mediterranean.

As he stepped out of the nondescript News Corp. tower onto Sixth Avenue and into the August morning sun, Brauchli felt encouraged. He thought that there was plenty of overlap between his vision and the baron's.

R
UPERT MURDOCH
visited the
Wall Street Journal
's newsroom for the first time as its future owner on September 12, after a relaxing month aboard his
Rosehearty
yacht. To prepare for his arrival, reporters festooned the newsroom with enlarged "hedcuts" of Murdoch—ink portraits the paper used to illustrate its stories instead of photos—accompanied by the caption "Show Us the Money." Negotiations between Dow Jones's management and its small, ineffectual union were ongoing, and the reporters wanted to pressure Murdoch into treating them fairly. They knew of his reputation. A union buster, he had singlehandedly broken the British print unions back in 1986 by dismantling the legendary presses on London's Fleet Street with his Wapping complex in East London. But they hoped—against hope—he would put on a friendlier face for his takeover of Dow Jones and the
Wall Street Journal.

Once inside the door of the paper he had sought to own for as long as any of his associates could remember, Murdoch was not the evil genius many expected him to be. While he was no friendlier to unions or patient with the "respectable" American newsroom he saw rife with self-importance, he cut an almost grandfatherly figure. His hands, worn down by years of pampering, had grown papery and soft, and the deep crevasses in his face made him seem frequently tired, even when he was full of energy, as he was the day he stepped into One World Financial Center to visit his prize.

He had come the week before to see Dow Jones's executives. CEO Rich Zannino made sure he would feel welcome in part by turning the televisions from CNBC to Fox News. Zannino had also set up an office for Murdoch just two doors down from his own. The maintenance staff in the building initially marked the office with a nameplate for "Rupert Murdoch," but Zannino scolded them—such a welcome was too obvious and crass and, frankly, modest—and they took it down.

Brauchli was jittery on this first day with his new boss. He pulled Murdoch from meeting to meeting, introducing the editors and showing off the newsroom. Brauchli believed in the
Journal
and wanted Murdoch to be impressed. Brauchli especially wanted to display the planned launch of a glossy magazine called
Pursuits,
unabashed advertiser bait that would mimic the profitable ventures at the
New York Times
such as the fashion-focused
T
magazine. Dow Jones executives and
Journal
editors would unveil a prototype of the magazine to Murdoch. Even though he wasn't yet officially the owner, they wanted his approval for the project. Since it would be his decision ultimately whether the magazine would launch, and in what form, it only made sense to include him, Zannino reasoned.

In the meeting, Murdoch's mind was elsewhere. "We've got to have a much smaller meeting and figure out how to cripple, really cripple the
New York Times,
" he said quietly as the group sat down to begin. The editors showed him the prototype, and Murdoch nodded occasionally, providing his own commentary. "We've got to lower the advertising rates to make them comparable to the
Times's
weekly magazine," he said. He leafed through the prototype, and the attendees from Dow Jones craned their necks closer to better understand his rumbling speech. He told them that there should be more beautiful women in the advertisements in the magazine. "My wife brings home these magazines and just pages and pages through them, looking at the ads," he said, with contented befuddlement. "She loves it." When he spotted a photo of an older CEO in the prototype, Murdoch exclaimed, "He's really shrunk." The others laughed, a bit nervously. "I've shrunk. I mean, you'll shrink," he continued, pointing to one of the younger editors in the room. "But why is it that some people shrink?" The attendees, including Zannino, Brauchli, Gordon Crovitz, and the
Journal
reporter who had done the lion's share of the work on the prototype, Robert Frank, said little, offering an occasional comment, though never a contradictory one. This was not the razor-sharp titan of legend. Murdoch said he wanted Leonard Lauder, the chairman of Estee Lauder Companies, to advertise in the magazine. "But Len always asks for coverage in exchange for ads," Murdoch mused, "and I'm going to be the one who tells him no. That'll be fun."

 

Murdoch and Robert Thomson would appoint their own editor of the magazine, Tina Gaudoin, who had worked for Thomson at the
Times
of London as editor of that paper's upscale
Luxx
magazine. Slim and fashionable, Gaudoin came from a world where magazine editors accepted gifts from fashion designers. The
Journal
's "Code of Conduct," which applied to every employee from the chief executive down to the news assistants, prevented such fringe benefits. Gaudoin appeared loath to give up the perks.

She had told colleagues that the strictures at the
Journal
against accepting gifts made life impossible for an editor like her. On an editor's salary, one couldn't traffic in the appropriate circles without taking advantage of the generosity of the magazines' advertisers and article subjects. Deep discounts on fashion were common for editors at many women's magazines, in both the United Kingdom and the United States.

Gaudoin appealed to the
Journal
's ethics czar, Alix Freedman, who had won a Pulitzer Prize for the paper years before for a series in which she investigated the efforts of tobacco companies to increase smokers' intake of nicotine. In a contentious meeting in Freedman's office, Gaudoin made her case, gesturing to her handbag and other articles she was wearing. She had done things quite differently in London.

Freedman said there would be no exceptions. The story quickly circulated in the
Journal
newsroom as evidence of the culture clash between an institution with ethical standards and ones without them. In any event, Gaudoin signed the Dow Jones Code of Conduct (which she later said she was happy to do). She gave up her Barneys discount card.

F
OR THOSE FIRST MONTHS
before he had officially taken over, Murdoch reveled in his position. Everyone inside Dow Jones, from Rich Zannino on down, acted as if Murdoch were already in charge. Marcus Brauchli had started back in June assembling his new team of editors to lead the paper, and his activity since the announcement of the deal had only accelerated, now that the Bancrofts were no longer a concern and he had more time to devote to the internal workings of the newsroom. He didn't make a move without considering Murdoch, of course, though he still hoped he could impress the mogul with the
Journal
's homegrown talent and way of doing things. He urged his editors to think of every possible suggestion News Corp. might have for the
Journal
in order to come up with a response that would allow the
Journal
to fashion its own destiny under the conglomerate. Even though he thought of them often, and how to protect them, he grew more distant from his editors during this period; he was so busy strategizing how to save the paper that he spent little time with the people who were putting it out. He was practicing the age-old strategy of "managing up" and spent hours with Murdoch, attempting to charm him.

No matter what Murdoch would tell his board or his investors about the rich array of businesses at Dow Jones, it was the
Journal
that he wanted and the
Journal
he watched. So Murdoch was willing to allow Brauchli to stay in his position as long as Thomson was the one with real control. Over time, however, it became clear to him that Thomson wasn't running the paper with a free hand, and Murdoch wasn't allowed the fun he thought he would have—daily chats with his editor and a ringside seat at the inner workings of the daily diary of the American dream—while Brauchli was in charge.

Brauchli continued to work feverishly on a plan to redesign the
Journal,
in hopes his stamp on the paper would be to Murdoch's liking. Brauchli was a fan of wonky political and financial reporting. His taste for corporate dramas paled in comparison to his liking for analyses of the global financial system or a quirky tale about a corrupt foreign dictator. He wanted to bring more political reporting into the paper, a goal that jibed with Murdoch's vision. The internal name for the planned redesign, which was in the works before Murdoch's bid even surfaced the previous April, was "Project Kilgore," a reference to the famed Barney Kilgore, who transformed the
Journal
from its narrow stock-tip roots to a national daily that covered a wide range of business and society. Project Kilgore would bring more politics to the front page of the paper; refocus the entire front section of the
Journal
more toward politics, culture, art, and science; and move corporate coverage to the second section of the paper. That second section, "Marketplace," had been a home for media, health, and technology feature stories, but in the redesigned
Journal
the biggest corporate news stories of the day would reside there.