The New York Times-20080129-Wall Street Journal-s New Direction Will Take It to Midtown

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Wall Street Journal's New Direction Will Take It to Midtown

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The Wall Street Journal miles away from Wall Street? Covering sports?

Yes, the paper that has chronicled business from Lower Manhattan for 119 years is making plans to start a sports page and move to the Midtown offices of its corporate parent, the News Corporation, according to people briefed on the matters.

Seven weeks after taking over The Journal, Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of the News Corporation, is making good on his plans to integrate it with his media empire and to broaden the paper's interests and appeal.

As long ago as last August, people at Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Journal, said that Mr. Murdoch was musing about moving the paper out of the World Financial Center and into his company's building on Avenue of the Americas at 48th Street. The News Corporation completed its purchase of Dow Jones on Dec. 13 for more than $5 billion.

Now the move is all but certain and should take place this year, according to Dow Jones executives who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the changes. The Journal's newsroom will move, they said, along with some other Dow Jones offices; parts of the newsroom operation relocated in 2001 to South Brunswick. N.J., where the company has a printing plant, and the paper already has its advertising sales department in the Times Square area.

A move to Midtown would be embraced more readily by Journal employees than some other changes Mr. Murdoch has proposed. The Journal's offices overlook the World Trade Center site, a raw daily reminder of Sept. 11, 2001. Many of those who died were known well by people at The Journal, and a cloud of toxic dust forced the paper and its neighbors to abandon the area for nearly a year.

The move would also make for easier commuting for people who live in the suburbs and take commuter trains and buses, which go to Midtown.

People are more than ready to do this, a Journal employee said.

The Journal has never been based more than a quick walk away from the street it was named for. For most of its history it was on Broad Street, around the corner, then on Cortlandt Street, four blocks north.

Mr. Murdoch says he wants The Journal to expand nonbusiness coverage, especially in areas like politics, government and entertainment, while also making it more inviting and easier to read. Adding sports reporting would seem to fit into that strategy.

The Journal regularly covers the business of sports, but does not cover the sports themselves extensively. But in recent years, seeking more ads aimed at consumers rather than businesses, it has greatly expanded its lifestyle and consumer reporting, adding softer sections like Personal Journal and Weekend Journal, and a Saturday newspaper.

People at the paper who have been briefed on the plan say it is very likely that a sports page, possibly tucked into Personal Journal, will be created in the next few months. But they cautioned that it was not yet clear how often the page would appear or what kinds of articles it would contain.

Covering sports events that last late into the night would be logistically difficult for The Journal, which goes to press unusually early for a major newspaper. Mr. Murdoch said at a recent meeting of bureau chiefs and editors that he wanted to find a way to allow later deadlines.

For now, the printing schedule hampers efforts to cover late-breaking news, which suggests that a sports page would mostly contain features, commentary, analysis and investigations.

The Journal has said it will introduce a magazine in September devoted to the lifestyles of the affluent, another bid for a bigger share of the consumer ad market. Initially, Robert Frank, a longtime Journal reporter who wrote the book Richistan (Crown, 2007), about wealthy Americans, was expected to be the first editor of the magazine, which is tentatively titled Pursuits.

But Monday, the paper announced that the editor would be Tina Gaudoin, editor of The Times Luxx, a similar magazine published quarterly by another News Corporation paper, The Times of London. That newspaper's art director, Tomaso Capuano, will help design The Journal's magazine.

Ms. Gaudoin, a former style director of the London paper's weekend magazine, has experience in glossy high-end magazines, including Tatler and Vogue. Her appointment suggests that the new magazine will be less Journal-like than one The Journal would have produced on its own, and more reflective of the direction in which Mr. Murdoch wants to take the paper.

[Illustration]PHOTOS: Tina Gaudoin will be editor of The Journal's new magazine; A move by The Wall Street Journal to the Midtown Manhattan offices of its corporate parent, the News Corporation, should take place this year, according to some Dow Jones executives. (PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL NAGLE/GETTY IMAGES)