The Wall Street Journal will add more than three dozen positions to their newsroom, the paper’s editor-in-chief Matt Murray revealed in an internal memo to staff on Tuesday.
“Today, we are happy to announce that we are creating additional newsroom departments and posting more than three dozen new jobs,” Murray said.
The memo said the new positions would aim to strengthen the paper in five key areas, identified as Young Audiences, Membership Engagement, Newsroom Innovation, Audience Data and R&D.
“The slate of new jobs includes developers, designers, product managers, data specialists, and also, crucially, journalists,” the memo continued. “There are many new reporting jobs throughout these teams, and furthering our goals to find new ways to work together, the reporters will be seated directly with team members of many different skill sets.”
Among the new editorial spots now being advertised on the Wall Street Journal include a video journalist, a banking reporter, and a “WSJ newsroom innovation chief.”
There was also an opening for a “young voices editor,” which suggests the paper’s new focus on reaching younger readers.
“The Wall Street Journal seeks a New York-based editor to oversee a new initiative to solicit and edit articles, videos, essays and storytelling in other formats by people in their teens and 20s,” a description of the job reads. “This editor will be a public-facing ambassador at universities to deepen the relationship the Journal has with college and graduate students, and the editor will run an editorial process to publish content created by students, young adults and young professionals.”
The news at WSJ contrasts sharply with broader industry headwinds of layoffs and downsizing. In recent months BuzzFeed, Vice, HuffPost, McClatchy, Gannett, Mic and many more smaller publishers have all undergone savage personnel cuts as part of restructuring.
While profitability remains elusive for many, those who have prospered have often done so only with the backing of a wealthy patrons. Staff additions at The Atlantic, Los Angeles Times and Time Magazine came only after each outlet was acquired by a sympathetic billionaire.