Bill Grueskin: Reporters Break News on WSJ.com
Many readers are no longer “engaged” in the print newspaper, says the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal Online
By Jeni Bauser
Photo/Everett Bogue
Like many New Yorkers on that cloudless September day, Bill Grueskin was at work when the first plane hit the World Trade Center, which stood just across the street from his office at the Wall Street Journal.
But unlike most people, after the first plane hit, Grueskin and his staff continued working. They had to update the Wall Street Journal Online.
That level of dedication to the news contributes to the Journal’s reputation as one of the world’s leading newspapers. The online edition, overseen by Grueskin, its managing editor, provides the Journal with the opportunity to cover news around the clock, while maintaining the same quality of reporting for which the paper is known in print.
“We’re intensely focused on updating the site 24 hours a day and doing a lot of original content,” says Grueskin. “We have a special relationship with our readers, because our readers pay.”
But for a couple of the days after the events of Sept. 11, visitors to the WSJ.com site were granted free access, in part because delivery of the print Journal couldn’t be guaranteed to some areas in New York City and Washington, D.C. Soon after evacuating the Journal’s offices on Sept. 11, the staff relocated to offices across the river in South Brunswick, N.J., while repairs were made to the headquarters building in New York.
“It was a hard year for the staff,” he recalls. “We lost our home for a while. But they really stuck together. Only person left during the whole year. A lot of people found character they didn’t realize they had.”
Grueskin was appointed to his position at WSJ.com just a few months before Sept. 11. He joined the Journal in 1995 as an editor on the Page One desk, where he worked on stories ranging from finance to social issues. In his current role, Grueskin is responsible for keeping the online edition up-to-speed with technological advancements, overseeing a team of 60 employees in New York and Brussels.
“Our reporters are very competitive. They quickly figured out that if they weren’t breaking news on the Web site, then they weren’t getting credited with being in charge of their beat.”
As one of the only for-pay news sites, some readers are turned away by the Journal’s subscription wall. While the WSJ.com had about 85 million page views in March, the free Web site of its rival, the New York Times, had more than 500 million page views.
Grueskin is skeptical of the possibility that the Times could begin charging a fee for its online content. “The Times has a large worldwide readership,” he points out, “and I think that getting some reader in Johannesburg to spend $5 a month to access the Times online is going to be really hard for them.”
Many Web sites and blogs are reluctant to link to stories on WSJ.com because the articles are locked up behind a subscription wall. So last summer the site introduced “Today’s Free Features," a page of links to a handful of free articles. The service won’t endanger the WSJ.com’s subscription model, insists Grueskin. “If anything, it opens the door a little bit so people can get a sense of the kinds of things that the Journal does.”
Initially, some of the Journal’s print reporters did not want to work with WSJ.com, he says, because writing for online can be “a pain in the ass.”
Working in print allows journalists to “massage the lede for a few hours, drink a cup of coffee, and take more time to write the story.” But as the world of online journalism began to pick up speed, the Journal’s print journalists started realizing that they could be scooped by other online news sources.
“Our reporters are very competitive,” he says. “The expectation is that any Journal reporter on a business beat should own that beat. They quickly figured out that if they weren’t breaking news on the Web site, then they weren’t getting credited with being in charge of their beat.”
Grueskin predicts that more and more readers will become accustomed to getting their news online.
“The single hardest thing for newspapers to deal with is that green plastic bin the people’s garages, where you have to put all that week’s newspapers. The papers for recycling just pile up day after day. It’s a visible reminder to people that they’re not engaged in the newspaper that much. The trends are inexorably going online.”