Bosomy art in The Journal may boost readership

As a decision nears (it could be by month end) on News Corp.’s $5 billion offer to buy Dow Jones, including The Wall Street Journal, things are stirring in The Journal’s newsroom.  Reports have editorial staffers updating their resumes and approaching other publications about jobs.

Also triggering newsroom mumblings, a story by Richard Perez-Pena in yesterday’s New York Times mentioned that following a conference call among WSJ editors and bureau chiefs, two WSJ staffers said The Journal would follow the lead of The Sun, London, in printing art of topless women, a major Page 3 attraction (www.thesun.co.uk and click on Page 3 in left column) in the News Corp. publication.

While that may be a mid-summer dream, perhaps that’s what’s needed to spark the mass of editorial gray matter on pages of The Journal and perk up ever-nervous Wall Street traders with other types of uplifting figures, feels Grumpy Editor, who notes The Sun averages nearly four million more readers each issue than its nearest competitor.

In the U.S., where newspaper revenues and circulations are sagging, that distinctive, eye-attracting feature may be just the tonic to yield more WSJ readers.

In the many recent stories on News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch’s discussions with Dow Jones principals, other than frequent references to the New York Post, not much has been mentioned about News Corp.’s vast global newspaper empire:

It publishes English-language newspapers, with operations in the United Kingdom, Australia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the U.S.  The newspaper segment also includes News International, which publishes four national newspapers in the U.K.; News Limited, which publishes more than 110 national, capital city and suburban newspapers in Australia, and the New York Post in the U.S.