On Media Blog Archives Select Date… December, 2015 November, 2015 October, 2015 September, 2015 August, 2015 July, 2015 June, 2015 May, 2015 April, 2015 March, 2015 February, 2015 January, 2015

Wall Street Journal closes bureaus, starts layoffs

The Wall Street Journal is closing several international bureaus and blogs and scaling back some teams, laying off dozens of employees in the process.

In a memo to staff on Thursday, obtained by the On Media blog, editor-in-chief Gerard Baker said the closures targeted content that wasn't generating much traffic or many subscribers. The Prague and Helsinki bureaus will be closed, as will the Bahasa, Indonesia, site. The small-business group and New York-based economics team will be eliminated, and the personal finance team will be scaled back.

"These closures and realignments do not reflect on the quality of the work done by these teams but simply speak to the pressing need to become more focused as a newsroom on areas we believe are ripe for growth. It is always painful to part with staff in this way but we express our deep gratitude to them for all they have done for Dow Jones and wish them the very best," Baker said in the memo.

Our colleagues at Capital New York report that about 30 staffers will be laid off. The news comes just a few weeks after the Journal embarked on a round of about 20 to 40 buyouts.

Baker also said in his memo that over the next few months the paper will be adding more positions "in the critical areas of business, finance, technology, markets and global economics" as well as in "visuals and video, audience data and analytics; social media engagement and others."

"This necessary restructuring will leave us a somewhat smaller but much more focused newsroom. We will be better-equipped and better able to exploit the opportunities that exist in the fastest growing parts of our business: with enhanced and improved coverage of the news that we know translates into additional circulation and long-term growth," Baker wrote.

Hadas Gold is a reporter at Politico.