Move over, People magazine. The Wall Street Journal is invading your turf.
Yes, the business newspaper in the gray flannel suit is emphasizing its human side. Starting today, The Journal is expanding its coverage of people and running a comprehensive index of all the people who are mentioned significantly in that day's newspaper. You probably won't see an article about how Jen is coping with the news of the baby Brad and Angelina are expecting, but you may be directed to an article about Alan Greenspan and his new consulting firm.
"People like to read about people," said Paul E. Steiger, managing editor of The Journal. "We're going to go with more names and a device that will help people if they or their best friends or worst enemies are somewhere in the paper."
The index to people will appear inside the back cover of the Marketplace section on an expanded "Who's News" page with a daily feature on an executive or business leader. (The current index to companies will stay inside the front cover of Marketplace.) Publishing consultants say that readers like such navigational tools, and many newspapers are making increasing use of them, sometimes on their front pages.
"There are a lot of people mentioned in our paper every day, and we'll try to get more of them in by paying more attention to executive movements," Mr. Steiger said. These will include business people from around the world, not just the United States.
The changes are separate from a redesign that The Journal is planning to institute next January when it will be printed on smaller presses, reducing its size from 15 inches wide to 12 inches wide.
Mr. Steiger said there were no plans for the smaller paper to carry advertising on its front page. But The Journal is running advertising on the front page of its Money section in its Saturday paper and he said that was an attraction to advertisers.
"We found a way to do it on Money where it didn't impair our ability to do navigation or report the news," he said. "And if we can find a way to do that on other section fronts, we'll probably do it."
