The competition for the most powerful position in business journalism ended yesterday as Marcus W. Brauchli was named managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, succeeding Paul E. Steiger, who has held the top job in the newsroom since 1991.
Mr. Brauchli, 45, who joined Dow Jones, publisher of The Journal, in 1984 as a copy editor and served for many years as a Journal foreign correspondent, has been a deputy managing editor of the paper since December 2005. Mr. Steiger, who reaches the mandatory retirement age of 65 later this year, is to become The Journal’s editor at large. Both appointments are effective May 15.
Mr. Brauchli (pronounced “BROCK-lee”) takes the helm of a newspaper that has retained its pre-eminence in the world of business journalism but is itself struggling. The migration of advertising to the Web that has hurt the entire industry has also hurt The Journal.
On Tuesday, Dow Jones reported a 1.8 percent drop in The Journal’s first-quarter advertising revenue, compared with a year ago, citing a fall-off in auto and technology advertising. The company’s consumer group, which includes The Journal, had a profit margin for the quarter of just 2.7 percent, slim even by comparison with most other newspapers.
But the paper has also taken steps lately that have defied trends in the industry, like starting a Saturday edition in hopes of broadening its base of advertisers beyond the business realm and requiring readers to pay for access to most of its Web site. Dow Jones said Tuesday that its growth online and in other electronic operations had outpaced its declines in print.
L. Gordon Crovitz, publisher of The Journal, said yesterday that he selected Mr. Brauchli because he “has a track record of being a change agent who truly understands the digital age and the opportunities for a news organization like The Wall Street Journal.”
According to several Journal employees, Mr. Brauchli had the strong backing of the newsroom as well as the active support of Mr. Steiger. Mr. Steiger’s stature was enhanced this week when The Journal captured two more Pulitzer Prizes, bringing the newspaper’s haul of Pulitzers to 16 during his tenure.
With Mr. Steiger’s impending retirement, the question of succession had been closing in on The Journal for some time.
Paul Ingrassia, 56, who was long perceived as the front-runner for the top job, was named vice president for news strategy at Dow Jones last July — adding to speculation that he might be named managing editor.
People close to the situation said that The Journal wanted to ensure a smooth transition in the post-Steiger era and affirm the standing of the newsroom in the corporate culture. Management is sensitive to newsroom concerns because in January 2006, Dow Jones named Richard F. Zannino as chief executive, the first nonjournalist to run the company in modern times.
Mr. Ingrassia, a former Journal reporter who shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for his coverage of General Motors, had been out of The Journal newsroom for more than a decade while he oversaw Dow Jones Newswires. (Mr. Ingrassia is the brother of Lawrence Ingrassia, the business editor of The New York Times.)
He recently presented a plan for Dow Jones’s future that included a reduction in staff, but according to people at The Journal, the plan did not achieve enough savings to justify the cuts.
Mr. Brauchli received an enthusiastic standing ovation in the newsroom when his appointment was announced yesterday afternoon. In an interview later, he said he planned to consult with Mr. Crovitz and Mr. Steiger about the future direction of the paper, adding, “this isn’t meant to be a huge disruptive change.”
His priority, he said, would be “understanding how we can best serve our readers in multiple media at a time when there is constant change in the way people consume information.”
This issue is on the mind of many newspaper editors across the country. Earlier in the day at the Dow Jones shareholders’ meeting, Mr. Zannino said from the podium: “We can no longer afford to be as newspaper-centric as we have been in the past. We have to be more brand-centric.”
Word of the selection of Mr. Brauchli came amid contract negotiations with employees.
At the shareholders’ meeting yesterday, representatives of the newsroom complained publicly that Mr. Zannino was overseeing cuts that would undermine the quality of The Journal. Peter Kann, chairman of the board, said from the podium, “I do not believe there’s any basis for the claims that quality is being undermined.”
E. S. Browning, a Journal reporter who covers the financial markets and is chairman of the union bargaining committee that represents Journal employees, said he had known Mr. Brauchli since they worked together in Europe.
“He has always been a champion of the highest quality standards, and we would certainly expect that that would continue,” Mr. Browning said. “We would just hope that Rich Zannino doesn’t try to squelch that.”
Mr. Brauchli said that while he hoped to operate the newsroom efficiently, it had expanded, in part from adding the Saturday paper. He added, “This is not a moment when Dow Jones is in retreat in any way.”
Mr. Brauchli was part of the team that redesigned The Journal into a physically smaller newspaper, which made its debut in January and has already saved The Journal $5 million in newsprint costs. He also helped guide The Journal’s transition to smaller editions in Europe and Asia and helped The Journal develop its Weekend Journal section.
Mr. Brauchli joined Dow Jones as a copy editor with AP-Dow Jones (a joint venture between the company and The Associated Press) and transferred to Hong Kong in September 1984 as a reporter for the newswire. In May 1987, he joined The Journal as Scandinavia correspondent, moving the next year to The Journal’s Tokyo bureau where he covered economics and eventually became the China bureau chief. While in Asia, he was known in part for giving a big party every year that drew people from business, politics and the arts from around the world.
As a foreign correspondent, Mr. Brauchli has reported from more than 20 countries. He moved to New York as a news editor in 1999 and became national news editor in 2000. He is married to Maggie Farley, a reporter who covers the United Nations for The Los Angeles Times. They have two young daughters.
Mr. Brauchli graduated from Columbia University and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard from 1991 to 1992.
