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CNN Live At Daybreak

When You Pick 'Wall Street Journal' This Morning You Will See Color

Aired April 09, 2002 - 05:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, when you pick up your "Wall Street Journal" this morning, you will see color. Can you see it? That's right, the paper has made some major changes, and color is not the only thing that's new about the "Wall Street Journal."

Joining me from New York to tell us about the new look and the content is Dan Hertzberg, who is deputy managing editor of the "Wall Street Journal" -- good morning, Dan.

DAN HERTZBERG, DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": Good morning.

COSTELLO: Hey there hasn't been a change since World War II. What took you guys so long?

HERTZBERG: Well we like the paper the way it is. Our readers like it. And when we want to make changes, we want to make changes that are really good for our readers.

COSTELLO: Well in looking at the changes, I mean, there is color added, but it's very muted. So it's a very subtle change.

HERTZBERG: Yes it is, but it's an important change. We're making it easier for our readers to find the news they want to find in the paper. We value their time. And we've added news that's really relevant to their personal life.

We have a new section, "Personal Journal," that will run three times a week that will feature personal finance, things like insurance, credit cards, travel, healthcare, autos. Things that really are useful for you outside the office, as well as in the office.

COSTELLO: Why did the "Wall Street Journal" decide to add such a feature and add color to the paper?

HERTZBERG: Well, our readers really appreciate news that's useful for them in their life, in their business life, in their personal life. We've always had great interest in our personal finance. It's an important area of coverage for us, and we wanted to give it more space and we wanted to expand the areas we wrote about.

COSTELLO: And you also wanted to attract more advertisers, right? Because there's been a big advertising slump in really all media outlets, but especially the "Wall Street Journal."

HERTZBERG: Well we are -- you know, we get a lot of financial advertising, and obviously that was effected by the market going down in tech advertising. But this is a cyclical business. The paper is still very profitable, and mainly we want our readers -- we want our readers to have a paper that's even more relevant to their lives.

COSTELLO: The "Personal Journal" section, let's go back to that for a second, because it sounds kind of fluffy. And that's really not what the "Wall Street Journal" is about. Are you afraid of turning off your traditional readers?

HERTZBERG: No. On the contrary, every survey we've ever done, every reader we've ever talked to, they love our coverage of personal finance. It's got an edge to it, it's interesting, it's easy to understand, it's comprehensive and it's authoritative. And we want to give that more space, we want to expand it.

We want to do the same thing for travel, for healthcare, for cars, for consumer -- for consumer finance. If the Fed raises interest rates, we want to tell you whether it's time to refinance. These are all the sort of questions our readers have, and there's great interest in this.

COSTELLO: So with the new color and the new features, is the cost of the newspaper going up for...

HERTZBERG: No.

COSTELLO: No?

HERTZBERG: No. It's still the same cost. We've got all the features we had before and we've added new ones. It's a very exciting -- it's a very exciting thing for us, and I think it will be for our readers too.

COSTELLO: So it's not going to turn into "USA Today?"

HERTZBERG: No. No, we're still the "Wall Street Journal."

COSTELLO: Well you know it's a hard thing for many media outlets to work in "the news you can use" with the hard-hitting news of the day. That has been a dilemma for many of us.

HERTZBERG: Yes, but our -- the scope of what the Journal covers is so wide, it effects people in so many areas of their life. As we said, travel, all sorts of areas of personal finance, cars. We write about the industry, but we also write about what's the best SUV and what the newest government crash tests mean for you.

COSTELLO: And you're pretty good, Dan, on breaking news. Because didn't you guys just win a Pulitzer for that?

HERTZBERG: We did, indeed, for our coverage on September 11th. It was a Pulitzer that was won by everybody at the paper. As you know, we were forced out of our headquarters, which was across the street from the World Trade Center. And we still managed to put out what was just an extremely good newspaper.

COSTELLO: Well congratulations to you, Dan Hertzberg. And thank you for joining us this morning to talk about the new and hopefully improved "Wall Street Journal." We'll let the readers decide that.

HERTZBERG: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Thank you, Dan.

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