Wall Street Journal managing editor stepping down

NEW YORK — Marcus Brauchli is departing as managing editor of The Wall Street Journal after a little less than a year on the job, a person familiar with the matter said late Monday.

Brauchli's departure, which was first reported on the Web site of Time magazine, comes four months after the Journal's parent company Dow Jones & Co. was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate News Corp.

The person familiar with the situation, who asked not to be named since the decision had not yet been made public, said Brauchli was expected to stay on with the company in a yet-to-be-determined role.

It was not yet clear what led to Brauchli's decision, and Wall Street Journal spokesman Robert Christie declined to comment, as did News Corp. spokeswoman Teri Everett.

Time said the departure could be announced as early as Tuesday.

Brauchli took the top newsroom role at the Journal last May, shortly after News Corp. disclosed its $5 billion offer to buy Dow Jones.

News Corp. completed the acquisition only after extended infighting among the company's previous controlling shareholders, the Bancroft family, amid concerns about the editorial independence of the paper.

As part of the conditions to complete the transaction, News Corp. agreed to create an oversight board that would have to sign off on the appointment or removal of the managing editor or other top editorial roles.

Murdoch has said he wants to position the Journal as more of a direct competitor to The New York Times for readers and advertising dollars.

The paper has shown clear signs of evolving in the few months Murdoch has owned it, putting a greater emphasis on political news, adding a regular sports page, and reformatting the front page from five columns to six.

On Monday, the paper also announced the reorganization of its opinion pages, including the addition of a third page to allow for more regular columnists and opinion articles. Former Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, whose new column will deal with technology issues, made its debut Monday.

Brauchli, 46, was named managing editor in April 2007 and formally assumed the role in May, replacing Paul Steiger, who led the paper since 1991.

Brauchli had been a foreign correspondent for most of his more than two decades at the paper. As deputy managing editor under Steiger, he oversaw the Journal's 2005 redesign, which trimmed its width in a move to cut printing costs by $20 million a year.

The managing editor is the top news executive at the Journal, reporting to Robert Thomson, whom Murdoch named publisher in December, overseeing all editorial operations at Dow Jones. Thomson had formerly been editor of Murdoch's The Times of London.