War at the Wall Street Journal (31 page)

Managing editor Marcus Brauchli had directed the bureau chiefs to present four priorities in two minutes—thirty seconds per topic. Some took insult from the directive. They had just heard Murdoch's disdain for stories that were too long. Already they were meant to show they could be brief.

Despite the fact that they were top editors at the premier business publication in the world, many of the assembled had few options to find jobs outside the paper. Journalism was a shrinking field. There were fewer papers in the world than when they started out. Maybe it was true that there were more Web sites and blogs, but few of those had demand for middle-aged editors prized for their experience and news judgment. This crowd was a captive work force. At another time they may have faced their new owner with a righteous protest, but that kind of romantic resistance was a luxury they could no longer afford. That Friday morning in January, they were meek, easily disheartened, and scared. They were auditioning for the jobs they already had.

Murdoch was growing weary. He sat through presentations from page editors, bureau chiefs, deputy managing editors, and news editors—all these layers of management. What did they do all day? From his seat in the third row of tables, Murdoch spent most of his time at the meeting quietly conferring with his newly appointed publisher of the paper, Robert Thomson, his tour guide. Murdoch trusted Thomson to recognize the pomposity of the assembled crowd, to break through the rigid traditions that these journalists were clinging to out of fear or laziness or both. The two had been whispering to each other during several of the presentations. As was his custom, Murdoch had a pen in his hand and was scrutinizing the day's
Journal.
The presentations continued, about such topics as computer-assisted reporting, writing an investigative "leder," reporting and writing "scoops of thinking," a type of story the
Journal
prided itself on dominating. Murdoch was not impressed.

Now it was time for the bureau chiefs to stand before the group and present their priorities. Brauchli had been excited about the idea. "Let Murdoch and his lieutenant meet the editors at the
Journal,
" he thought. "Show them how smart and down-to-earth these editors are. Show Murdoch that the paper isn't made up of the media elite he so despises. Let him see the good midwestern roots at the core of the paper, its work ethic, its heart. This will convince him not to gut the paper. Let Murdoch inside and he will be impressed with us. We will change him. We will be the exception." But as the editors lined up, they began to have second thoughts. The plan to introduce Murdoch to the brilliance and humility of the
Wall Street Journal
's staff seemed foolish, even disastrous. So much for the celebration of the greatness of an iconic institution. Instead, Brauchli had put on a parade of humiliation where the conquered were being made to sing for their new master. The only consolation to the editors: Murdoch barely looked up to hear them speak.

B
RAUCHLI VALIANTLY CONTINUED
onward, putting the paper out every day and second-guessing himself more often than that. His busied himself with keeping Murdoch and Thomson out of the newsroom. He was in a race to change the paper in a way that satisfied them, yet Brauchli insisted that neither man meddled in coverage. "I had more contact with the previous publisher than the current one," he told colleagues. But avoidance took more energy than engagement, and in his furious rush to keep them out of his affairs, Brauchli appeared constantly preoccupied.

On February 4, News Corp. released its quarterly earnings for the first time as an official owner of Dow Jones. That day, the company reported a 24 percent increase in operating profit, though its net income rose fractionally—just 1 percent. Thomson strolled by Brauchli's office and said, in a stage whisper, "Operating profit, operating profit, operating profit." Brauchli was initially puzzled but then realized that Thomson must be referring to the earnings release. Brauchli brought Thomson into his office and explained that the
Journal
always emphasized net income first in its stories. That figure took into account taxes, depreciation, and all the other costs that affected a business's performance, and the paper considered it the most important figure in a company's earnings release. Any other number allowed a corporation to include and exclude various charges and other figures that could massage the earnings to make them appear rosier.

"Oh, don't change the standard, then," Thomson replied. "Just be consistent." The following day, Brauchli was amused to see the
New York Post's
story on the topic led with a "record" increase in operating income.

 

On February 13, a snowy day not long after the bureau chiefs' meeting, Thomson stood in Brauchli's ninth-floor office with a request from the boss. "Rupert thinks I should have an office on nine," he said, almost sheepishly. Until then, Thomson had resided on the executive eleventh floor and had to descend two floors on the elevator to see the news desk on the ninth floor.

Brauchli swiveled in his chair to face out his wall of windows overlooking the newsroom, where beyond his assistant's desk there lay a swath of empty carpet and no desks or reporters or editors. Brauchli's grand redesign of the newsroom hadn't yet begun, and there was still a large chunk of the newsroom that wasn't being used.

"Gee, there's no space down here," he said to Thomson, with a barely perceptible smile.

"Look, it's not what you think," Thomson said. "He doesn't want to make me editor." With his stooped carriage and ever present black suits, Thomson cut an unusual figure in the newsroom, but he could be unexpectedly charming. Thomson was ultimately responsible, in Murdoch's eyes, for the paper, though Brauchli didn't see it that way. Thomson didn't want to have to continue to answer to Murdoch that he had no desk on the newsroom floor.

"To be honest, he wants us to be seen more in the newsroom. He thinks we should be visible," Thomson said.

"Does he want me to quit?" asked Brauchli.

"No, no," said Thomson, attempting to smooth things over and yet deliver a message. "He just wants things to move faster. You and he are moving in the same direction; it's just a matter of speed."

"I have to look after the culture and the staff, too. I can't do it all at once," Brauchli said, pausing. "You have to protect me."

"I take a lot of bullets for you, to be honest," Thomson shot back. Brauchli's face flushed.

He recovered quickly, accustomed as he was at this stage to the battering of his position. He suggested Thomson take over a vacant conference room near where the reporters for the financial magazine
Barron's
sat. The room was the second-to-last office on the way out of the
Journal
's ninth-floor newsroom, between the
Journal
's graphics department and the
Barron's
office space.

"If you take that," Brauchli said, always strategizing, "I can make the case you are in between the two publications and not in the
Journal
newsroom." Thomson agreed to the arrangement but warned Brauchli, "Never tell Rupert I'm not in the
Journal
newsroom."

Of course, Murdoch needn't be told something he could witness with his own eyes, and the symbolism of it enraged him. Murdoch wanted his man on the newsroom floor, someone he could call to hear the latest news of the day. He didn't pay more than $5 billion to see his closest intimate stashed away in a closet nowhere near the reporters. That move, simple and petty, helped usher in what came next.

Murdoch still hadn't adjusted to the formality of the Dow Jones staff he had inherited, nor they to his unexpected outbursts. In a March 2008 meeting, Murdoch dropped by to listen to the paper's plans to promote yet another redesign, due to launch April 21 with some of Brauchli's proposed changes. When told he should listen to the paper's public relations plan, Murdoch said it wasn't necessary. "We don't need to talk about this," he said. Public relations was something Murdoch had never fully trusted. He thought it was a waste of time and, worse, a way to tip your hand to a competitor.

"You really should hear what Bob has to say," urged Kelly Leach, who worked on strategy for Dow Jones, referring to the ever affable vice president of communications, Robert Christie. Earlier in the week, the
New York Times
had run a lukewarm story on the paper's overhaul of its "Marketplace" section. "Usually my philosophy is we get ahead of the story," Christie ventured, "so we're not in a reactionary mode."

"Fuck the
New York Times,
" Murdoch growled, suddenly surly. "I don't care what the media says."

"But Rupert," ventured Leach, "we know our advertisers aren't committed on incremental advertising spend—"

"We're going to do this our way and not give them a road map," Murdoch replied, beginning what became a longer-than-expected rant. "We're going to build a fantastic newspaper. I don't give a fuck what the media says," he continued.

Finally, Leach edged back into the conversation. "We've been doing market research of our readers and their opinion of the
Journal
has diminished since News Corp. announced it was going to acquire Dow Jones."

Then Rupert Murdoch, who had been simmering under the surface, exploded. "We're going to build a fucking great paper and I do not give a fuck what New York or the media has to say about it! We'll build the world's best paper!" This must be what truly energized him. He didn't want these nervous midlevel people around him, questioning every move. He wanted them to be aggressive and have fun and be a little more like one of the team.

O
N AN UNSEASONABLY COOL
April morning, Murdoch, looking buoyant, boarded his 130-foot Boeing jet, spacious enough in a standard model to accommodate 125 people but shuttling only 5 that day. Given Murdoch's plans, his mood might have convinced those who called him cold-blooded of the accuracy of their description. Maybe it was the prospect of change, not the task ahead, that was energizing him.

Murdoch passed distractedly down the long corridor lined with blond wood and past the bedroom, tastefully decorated with a beige bedspread and ivory pillows and blankets. He shuffled past the private meeting room with a long conference table surrounded by seven seafoam-green leather easy chairs. The flight attendant, Peggy, busied herself arranging the pillows and otherwise tidied up. Idle hands, her activity suggested, need not apply.

Murdoch threw himself down on a plush seat at the back of the plane, which was among the largest on the private tarmac. "Oh, the Arabs' planes are bigger," he casually offered to Gary Ginsberg, his spokesman, who was waiting for him. Added fuel tanks on this model allowed him to travel ten hours without stopping—nice for trips back to his native Australia, where he traveled at least once a year and which, after all these years away, still remained the continent on which he felt most at ease.

Today, the trip was less ambitious. They were headed to Washington, DC, to a dinner honoring Murdoch at the Atlantic Council—a nonpartisan think tank that aspired to promote civilian dialogue among NATO member countries. Spain's former prime minister José Maria Aznar, a fellow conservative and News Corp. board member, had suggested Murdoch for the award, and while skeptical of the organization, Murdoch wanted to help his friend. Such awards were obligations for him and the dinners that accompanied them almost lethal. The Distinguished Business Award event would normally have been no night to remember, but he would be there, smiling occasionally and feigning interest in the proceedings. At least he would be sitting next to Henry Kissinger, which might prove entertaining.

 

The night before the plane trip to DC, Murdoch took his two youngest daughters, ages six and four, out to dinner. "A big adventure," he said. "Dinner with Daddy." The domestic evening of dinner with the girls behind him, Murdoch was on the plane to DC, about to make his move. He would show that the
Journal
was under his control. Four months after Murdoch's deal for the
Journal
had closed, Marcus Brauchli, the managing editor of the paper, was about to leave the picture.

"It'll all be finalized in two hours," Murdoch said to Ginsberg.

Many times the News Corp. "pirates" had signaled the arrival of the new order with the tossing of figureheads. Often Murdoch explicitly fired them, but many times they got the message and jumped before they were pushed. The only consistency was that they left. Dorothy Schiff was supplanted at the
New York Post, New York's
Clay Felker was ejected, Harry Evans of the
Times
of London was suddenly redundant. Murdoch made no concessions to sentiment or even familial association. As everyone knew, Murdoch had allowed News Corp. executives like Roger Ailes, the former Nixon speechwriter, to undermine his tattooed and athletic elder son, Lachlan, whom Murdoch had trained from his earliest days to take over at the company. Ailes prevailed—he'd won the old man's affection by building Fox News. At Dow Jones, it had been similar. Zannino offered to leave his post but simultaneously said, "'I'll hang around and help or be available if you like,'" Murdoch remembered. "But I've taken up offers like that in the past. And then I moved in, and always by the afternoon of the first day, I'm telling the guy to put his hat on and get out."

For almost a year, Brauchli had a lame-duck tenure, delicately attempting to protect himself from his new boss's encroachments. Not for a day had Brauchli appeared truly in charge. His limited reach wasn't a shock; he'd seen all of this coming and was holding out as best he could. Shortly after Murdoch's bid for the
Journal
became public, Brauchli sighed, saying to a friend, "I work my whole career to get this job and now I'm working for
Murdoch?
"

On the plane, Murdoch was dressed in a chalk-stripe gray flannel suit with a white spread-collar shirt and a red patterned tie. He scanned the morning's
Journal
and looked with disappointment at his new toy.