The Wall Street Journal was rocked by another high-level departure yesterday when editorial board member Amity Shlaes said she was leaving to go to archrival Financial Times as a senior columnist.
In just over a month, eight senior editorial staffers with more than 100 cumulative years of experience at the Journal, have bolted.
Shlaes, who started at WSJ 17 years ago and wrote a 1999 bestseller for Random House called, "The Greedy Hand: Why Taxes Drive Honest Americans Crazy," is leaving on March 17. That's the same day that Kevin Salwen, a 19-year veteran, is leaving his job as small business editor. Technically, Salwen said he is taking a "six-month leave of absence to test the viability of an online retailing business."
This week is also the last for George Anders, a senior special writer in the paper's San Francisco bureau and a 22-year veteran, who is leaving to head Fast Company's West Coast news bureau. "I like the paper and they've treated me well, but there are a lot of great opportunities out there to make your mark, and they are too good to pass up," Anders said. Insiders and outsiders at the Journal alike say that the recent spate of defections have sent morale at the nation's second-largest daily plummeting to an all-time low.
"They're losing superstars, people who have been there for years," said one insider.
Last month was particularly brutal for Paul Steiger, the WSJ editor. He lost 21-year WSJ veteran Tom Petzinger, who left to form a small-business incubator firm called LaunchCyte; thee Los Angeles bureau's Peter Gumbel to business.com; London Bureau Chief Gregory Steinmetz to a New York investment firm; former San Francisco bureau chief and 30-year WSJ veteran Greg Hill to Fortune spinoff eCompany Now, and Kyle Pope, WSJ TV and advertising editor, to Powerful Media.
That comes on top of last year's defections that included Quentin Hardy, who left for a senior editor job at Forbes, and publishing reporter Patrick Reilly, who left for an executive vice president's job at Robinson Lerer & Montgomery.
Richard Tofel, vice president, corporate communications for Dow Jones, parent company of the Wall Street Journal, said, "Circulation is up, advertising is up. Most people would say the paper is better than ever. Behind the people who are leaving are scores of talented people who are arriving every day."
As the defections mounted last month, one source said that Steiger appointed a committee to look at ways to keep talented people. So far, the brain drain shows no signs of slowing down. "They are appointing a committee instead of doing the right thing which is paying people more," said one defector.
One source said that the WSJ's idea of a good counter-offer is to offer to match up to half of the raise that a staffer gets from an outside source.
Said one insider, "I don't get the sense that management realizes how low morale is. They're only just starting to take measures, but the horse has left the barn."
