WSJ editor seeks wider reach for 'Heard' column

By Robert MacMillan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Heard on the Street," a staple business column for Wall Street Journal readers since the 1960s, is widening its reach as part of the newspaper's makeover by its new owner, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp NWSa.N, and top editor Robert Thomson.

Starting Monday, the "Heard," as Journal reporters and editors call it, will debut with more international business analysis coverage, a broader mix of subjects, its own page on the WSJ.com website and updates during global trading days.

It is the latest change wrought at the Journal by Thomson, the paper's managing editor and formerly editor of News Corp's The Times of London.

"The range of interests of our readers covers all parts of the economic and business spectrum," Thomson told Reuters in an interview. "We want a Heard that reflects those interests."

Thomson and Murdoch have been remaking the paper since News Corp bought parent company Dow Jones & Co in 2007. News Corp has put its own stamp on the Journal, including starting a glossy fashion and art magazine and building political and general news coverage.

Thomson stressed the importance of devoting more space to international news.

"One of the core roles we have is putting America in a global context," Thomson said. "Without that global context, any businessperson could be prone to myopia."

The Journal has 3.8 million print and online subscribers around the world, with a bit more than 2 million of them in the United States.

In a press statement to be released on Monday, Thomson took an even stronger tone: "Any business person anywhere in the world who does not read the Heard... will not be properly briefed, and who can afford the vulnerability of ignorance in the contemporary marketplace?"

Financial clients, who receive breaking market news through sister news outlet Dow Jones Newswires, will get Heard updates first, followed by WSJ.com subscribers.

Print edition subscribers will see more space devoted to the column -- half of the back page of the Journal's Money & Investing section.

Thomson is adding more staff to the team, which will be a 13-person collaboration between the paper and Newswires. Once, U.S. editor at Pearson PLC-owned (PSON.L) competitor the Financial Times, Thomson has drawn on colleagues from that former employer.

The Heard's new editor will be Thorold Barker, who joined from the Financial Times. He and Liam Denning, now a Journal writer, both worked for the FT's Lex column. The Lex is FT's own business analysis column.

No longer appearing in the Journal will be opinion columns from Breakingviews.com, which have run in the Journal for several years, Thomson said. Also disappearing will be "The Skeptic," a Newswires business analysis column.

One difference at the Heard will be the inclusion of Newswires reporters, one of the first attempts by Thomson to get the separate news staffs to work together. "It's culturally significant," he said. "We're breaking down the class system."