Journal's Pursuits Stills Needs Editor, Tina Gaudoin is Favorite

It was expected for a while that Robert Frank would run the Journal's prospective weekend glossy, Pursuits. When The New York Times broke the story about Pursuits in September, Richard Perez Pena reported that Mr. Frank was the favorite; the Observer reported later that he had a meeting with Mr. Murdoch and drew up prototypes for the magazine that were approved.

But that was before Mr. Murdoch officially owned the paper. It was revealed yesterday in a memo that was leaked to Romenesko that Robert Frank would become a news editor ("with significant responsibilities") and serve as an advisor to Pursuits-- in other words, he wouldn't become the top editor.

Instead, according to two newsroom sources, Mr. Murdoch and publisher Robert Thomson are eyeing Tina Gaudoin, the editor of Luxx, a luxury magaizne for the Times of London, for the top job at Pursuits. She was also a style director at the Times, so Ms. Gaudoin and Mr. Thomson worked closely together there. She was also the editor of the women's glossy Frank, and an editorial director of iVillage UK.

On the Luxx Web site, Ms. Gaudoin has the spirit of luxury mags down. She said: "[Luxury] is not necessarily overt (read bling) but it is always lovingly, painstakingly, passionately crafted by experts - be it a Bottega Veneta bag, an Aston Martin DB9 or a bespoke Amazon eco-adventure. At Luxx we tell the story of a product, why and how it works and what makes it special."