The Wall Street Journal is to cut 50 journalist posts in a restructure to centralise the editing of the paper in print and online, its managing editor, Robert Thomson, has revealed in a memo to staff.

Most of the editorial cuts will come from the WSJ's office in South Brunswick, New Jersey, which was set up following the September 11 terrorist attacks near the newspaper's Manhattan headquarters.

However, Thomson said the WSJ and the newswire service of parent company Dow Jones, which was bought by News Corporation in December, were expanding their online and international operations. This would create 95 new journalist jobs in the coming months.

"With the Journal's new leadership team in place, we are reforming our editing structure and changing fundamentally the way in which we produce the Wall Street Journal in its manifold forms," Thomson said, in a memo sent to staff in the US yesterday.

From the beginning of next month the "news hub" in the WSJ's main New York office will be responsible for editing copy and producing pages for the print edition, the website and mobile platform.

"The reasons for these changes are strategic, even if some of the benefits are economic," Thomson said.

He added that new editing desk jobs would be created so not all 50 staff affected are expected to leave.

"Staffers with the highest skill levels and the enthusiasm to acquire new skills will have a distinct advantage in the selection process," Thomson said, adding that the restructure should be put in its "contemporary context".

"In recent months, we have invested in a significantly larger newshole [content output], contrary to the industry trend, and filled long-vacant reporting positions in many bureaux," said Thomson.

"Our new budgets include an ambitious expansion to our web and international operations, both for the Journal and for newswires, where we are adding 95 journalists over the coming months," he added.

He said there was "good reason for optimism" at Dow Jones "amidst the pessimism prevailing in our industry".

Steven Yount, the president of the Independent Association of Publishers' Employees, said the union has "serious questions" about whether the WSJ job cuts breach its contract with Dow Jones, according to a report in today's Wall Street Journal Europe.

Thomson began a restructure of WSJ's editorial management last month following the departure of deputy managing editor Laurie Hays to Bloomberg after 23 years.

The former editor of the Times joined the WSJ as publisher in December after News Corp successfully completed the $5.2bn (£2.6bn) acquisition of parent company Dow Jones.

He was made the WSJ managing editor in May, taking over from Marcus Brauchli, who resigned in April.

Thomson is also editor-in-chief of Dow Jones' newswires service.

Les Hinton, the former boss of News Corp's UK newspaper subsidiary News International , is now chief executive of Dow Jones and publisher of the WSJ.

Separately, US newspaper the Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday announced that it will cut its work force by about 8%, or 189 jobs, and eliminate all of its geographically targeted news sections as part of a cost-cutting plan.

AJC is owned by US media company Cox Enterprises, which has 83,000 employees and 2007 revenues of $15bn (£7.5bn).

Cox claims that its newspaper operation is one of the 10 largest in the US consisting of 17 daily and 26 non-daily newspaper titles. The company also owns 15 TV stations and 86 radio stations.

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