13 Months After Murdoch: The Journal Diaspora

Last week, The Wall Street Journal’s managing editor, Robert Thomson, announced sweeping masthead changes—new people have been added, some familiar names dumped.

Laurie Hays, former deputy managing editor, is off to Bloomberg; Bill Grueskin, another deputy managing editor, is packing away for Morningside Heights and semi-retirement at the journalism school at Columbia University.

Other people left, too. Earlier this month, The Journal’s formidable Federal Reserve reporter, Gregory Ip, said that he was leaving for The Economist; a special writer from the San Francisco bureau, Rebecca Beckman, said she was leaving for Forbes.

Over the past 13.5 months, this has been a familiar parlor game at The Journal and in financial media circles: who’s leaving The Journal now?
Some of these moves happened directly because of Rupert Murdoch—they were pushed out by him, or staffers found him objectionable and left—some just happened for reasons unrelated. But it’s fair to say The Journal hasn’t experienced anything quite like this, well, ever.

It’s time for a roll call. Where have they gone, since May 1, 2007?

Portfolio:

Scott Paltrow, investigative writer at The Journal, now a contributing editor

Peter Waldman, investigative writer, now a senior writer

Dan Golden, Pulitzer-winning reporter, now a senior editor

Hilary Stout, editor of Personal Journal, now a senior editor

Doug Frantz, senior writer, agreed to join the L.A. Times but left for Portfolio

The New York Times:

Tara Parker-Pope, health writer

Brooks Barnes, reporter at The Journal, now a movie business reporter

Ron Lieber, left The Journal for Dow-Jones-IAC joint venture, now a columnist

Financial Times:

Henny Sender, senior special writer for Money & Investing, now an international financial correspondent

Orlando Sentinel:

Robert Block, Homeland Security reporter, now space editor

IAC:

Ed Felsenthal, deputy managing editor, now working with Tina Brown on her new project for Barry Diller (he originally left for Portfolio)

The Economist:

Greg Ip, senior special writer and Federal Reserve reporter, now U.S. economics editor

Fortune:

James Bandler, Pulitzer-winning reporter, will be U.S. economics editor

Forbes:

Anita Raghavan, London-based reporter, now European bureau chief

Rebecca Buckman, special writer at San Francisco bureau, now a staffer

BusinessWeek:

Paul Barrett, editor (only at The Journal briefly)

Reuters:

Robert MacMillan, reporter (also at The Journal briefly)

Bloomberg:

Laurie Hays, deputy managing editor, now executive editor for company news

Prospective Jobs:

Marcus Brauchli, former managing editor, top candidate for Washington Post executive editorship and currently a consultant for NewsCorp.

Academia:

Bill Grueskin, former deputy managing editor, becoming a dean at Columbia’s journalism school

Public relations gigs:

Sally Beatty, philanthropy reporter, joined Pfizer’s PR department

Kathryn Kranhold, GE reporter, joined Sard Verbinnen & Co.

Investment jobs:

Jonathan Clements, former personal finance columnist, now at Citigroup

Laurie Cohen, former senior special writer, going to a hedge fund.

jkoblin@observer.com