The Wall Street Journal and Walt Mossberg agree to mutually separate

Gerard Baker, Editor in Chief of Dow Jones and Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal, today issued the following statement, verbatim:

For years, Dow Jones/The Wall Street Journal has enjoyed working with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher to bring the best of tech coverage to readers around the world under the All Things Digital brand, however, after discussions, both parties have decided not to renew the agreement when the contract expires at the end of this year.

Technology is the central driver of economic growth and the Journal is committed to being the indispensable global source of news and information in this critical area. We plan to embark on a major global expansion of our technology coverage, which will include adding 20 reviewers, bloggers, visual journalists, editors, and reporters covering digital. As part of this global push, we will also be expanding our conference franchise to include an international technology conference and building a new digital home for our first-class technology news and product reviews on The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. This new initiative will be an integral part of The Wall Street Journal and will be rooted in the Journal’s reputation for excellent, fair, objective, reliable and stimulating journalism.

As part of the mutual separation, Walt Mossberg will be leaving the Journal at the end of this year. I want to offer heartfelt thanks for more than 20 years of Personal Technology columns as well as his very fine reporting on national and international affairs in the years before he turned his attention to technology coverage.

— Gerard Baker, Editor in Chief of Dow Jones and Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal

MacDailyNews Take: The end of an era.

45 Comments

    1. Since the Wall Street Journal employed Walt for 20 years, and gave him the platform that he performed on so well, and Walt was one of Apple’s biggest boosters over those years, your comment is the height of ignorance.

      1. Except the WSJ also wrote a lot of crap against Apple that Walt wasn’t involved with. Most of the WSJ stories wasn’t factual and was just hateful. Walt was the only one there with the facts. however WSJ never consulted him when they wrote a lot of there B.S. hate stories.So I agree with birdy.

        1. I enjoyed having a pleasurable lunch with Rush once, and my take is that his on-air personality is a rather clever, and handsomely rewarded, “character” – to a certain extent.

          So, he still believes in what he says, but he is able to broadcast his ideas in an over-the-top, polarizing manner that entertains and garners listeners. And, thus, justly padding his wallet with ad revenue.

          Politics aside, I found that he’s a personable guy in real life.

        2. I must admit and this is no criticism of you, I find it strange that people expect those who have very different views or politics from themselves to naturally therefore be obnoxious, horrible and nasty when they meet them. I often find people who have similar views to myself to much more unpleasant than some who have very different views. How each person comes across is as much how it combines with any other given person they are communicating with as their own set in concrete views and personality. Some clash some don’t even if either can get on perfectly with other personalities. And as we know opposites can often attract, but thats another story.

        3. I completely agree with spy – as an old codger who has been around the world a few times – in personal encounters, I have run into more vile personalities from those who agree with my philosophy than those who disagree. It seems that in personal meetings, discussions among “like mindeness” fuels hate, while similar meetings of the opposite philosophy go quite pleasantly. This seems to happen on BOTH sides of an issue.

        4. You haven’t really listened to him have you? Let go of your anger and bias and truly listen. You’ll see he advocates freedom and liberty. He rails against big government because it encroaches on freedom.

        5. Apart from him being a hyprocritical, drug-addicted, Viagra-snorting, serial adulterer who spouts decisive, sexist, racist nonsense for Tea Party sub-humans, what’s not to like?

        6. Anyone who rails only against big government without railing against big corporations is basically fooling you. See Rush Limbaugh, along with many other “conservative” pundits.
          If you want a smaller government because you like freedom, you’d better also be working to simultaneously reduce the power of big corporations. Otherwise, there won’t be anything to counter their oligarchic power.
          I sometimes wonder if a lot of these small-government people (who aren’t super-rich like Rush) would actually be anarchists if they could get past the negative stereotypes. Essentially, it sounds like they don’t want anyone to have the power to use violence/force to tell them what to do. Right now, the government and sometimes big corporations DO have that power. If the government gets weaker, the big corporations will probably have even more free reign to build their own security teams, increase control of every aspect of daily life, etc.

        7. You are missing a simple point. When you choose not to pay a company you don’t get their product. When you choose not to pay the government you go to jail.
          Big diff

        8. Hateful, divisive? Just because his views don’t jive with yours? I would say you have a far dose of hatefulness and divineness as well then. Misogynist? You must have just thrown that in for good lib measure. But you left out the disingenuous libtard “racist” description for clueless completeness.

  1. Indeed. For years, coverage by “uncle Walt” was the holy grail and could make or break a tech play. Still a wise and balanced writer who understands the viewpoint of those outside “the bubble” who buy the bulk of all this stuff. It’s just there are so many other voices completing for attention. Hope he launched something new and cool.

  2. This is sad news. I always looked forward to reading Walt and Katie’s columns in the Walt Street Journal at the library. They provided many good study and work breaks. I would read some of the finance articles, but their articles were like the dessert, always an enjoyable treat. Ever since Rupert Murdoch purchased the Journal, I have not felt confident it would maintain the same degree of journalistic excellence. I wonder how their decision relates to the new ownership.

  3. – ‘We plan to embark on a major global expansion of our technology coverage, which will include adding 20 reviewers, bloggers, visual journalists, editors, and reporters covering digital.’ – all paid and bribed regularly by Samsung and Microsoft… what a refreshing outlook on all things digital then.

  4. I’m just curious. Is it grammatically correct to say “they agreed to mutually separate”, or would it have been more correct to have said “they mutually agreed to separate”? It seems like the latter is more correct to me, but I’m not a writer for any publications. Anyone?

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