A phone hacking scandal and restless shareholders may have forced Rupert Murdoch to split News Corporation into two companies, but on Monday he celebrated the decision by pouring Veuve Clicquot Champagne over the head of his newest editor.

Standing in The Wall Street Journal’s newsroom on the sixth floor of News Corporation’s New York headquarters, Mr. Murdoch, chairman and chief executive, toasted Gerard Baker. Mr. Baker will take over as managing editor of The Wall Street Journal and editor in chief of Dow Jones & Company, positions held by Robert Thomson, who was named chief executive of the separate publishing company.

The publishing company will retain the name News Corporation and will consist of newspapers, including The Journal and The New York Post, and HarperCollins. Mr. Murdoch will serve as chairman.

The bigger company will be called Fox Group and will include Fox Broadcasting, 20th Century Fox and cable channels like Fox News and FX. Chase Carey, News Corporation’s president and chief operating officer, will maintain that title at Fox Group. Mr. Murdoch will serve as chief executive and chairman and his youngest son, James R. Murdoch, who left his post in Britain in the midst of the phone hacking scandal, will serve as Fox Group’s deputy chief operating officer.

The companies’ names serve as a reminder of how News Corporation has evolved over the years. The fast-growing cable television businesses led by Fox News have largely driven profits, while the mature newspapers faced industrywide headwinds and, more recently, the phone hacking scandal.

But Mr. Murdoch, who built his company from a single paper in Adelaide, Australia, has for years defended print. That the company will retain the News Corporation name underscored that newspapers, not cable television, represent the company’s emotional, if not financial, roots.

In a memo to the staff on Monday, Mr. Murdoch reaffirmed his connection to newspapers. “Many of you know that a belief in the power of the written word has been in my bones for my entire life,” he said. “My personal mission is to serve and satisfy the human need for insight as well as I possibly can.”

At the same time, the company announced it would shutter one of its publications. The Daily, a tablet-only news outlet introduced with much fanfare less than two years ago, will cease publication on Dec. 15. At The Daily’s introduction in February 2011 in New York, Mr. Murdoch stood on stage with an Apple executive, Eddy Cue, who said the publication would “redefine the news.” But The Daily never matched its high expectations.

“From its launch, The Daily was a bold experiment in digital publishing,” Mr. Murdoch said in a statement. “Unfortunately, our experience was that we could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable long-term.”

Jesse Angelo, editor in chief of The Daily, will become publisher of The New York Post, where he served as executive editor. Greg Clayman, The Daily’s publisher, will oversee the larger publishing company’s global digital strategy. The company said some additional Daily employees would be absorbed by The Post.

Mr. Thomson will soon oversee a publishing company that could buy more papers, while investing in video and new forms of digital distribution. Lucrative pay-television assets in Australia are expected to drive revenues in the new News Corporation. “Rupert has been the driving force behind the renaissance of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones,” Mr. Thomson said in a statement. “Our goal is to make the new News Corp. far more than the sum of its distinguished parts.”

Doug Mitchelson, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, said: “I think certainly a benefit of the spinoff is that mergers and acquisition risk related to newspapers or education would be isolated at the smaller publishing entity.”

Mr. Baker, who will replace Mr. Thomson, is deputy editor in chief at The Journal and was a columnist at the Times of London. He also served as Washington bureau chief at The Financial Times, where Mr. Thomson oversaw the United States edition.

Tom Mockridge, chief executive of News Corporation’s British publishing unit, News International, had also been considered a candidate to run the new publishing company. On Sunday, when reports emerged that Mr. Thomson would be named chief executive, Mr. Mockridge resigned.

Mr. Mockridge stepped in at News International in July 2011 to replace Rebekah Brooks. Ms. Brooks and several other top Murdoch lieutenants had been arrested on charges of illegal phone hacking and conspiracy at the company’s British tabloids. In a letter to the staff on Monday, Mr. Mockridge said that after 22 years at News Corporation, the new structure “does not offer me a role I am comfortable with.”

News Corporation is expected to announce more details about both companies, including their capital structures, by the end of the year. The separation is expected to be complete by mid-2013.