(Photo: Ruth Fremson/The New York Times/Redux)

Denizens of the Wall Street Journal’s genteel newsroom were in need of smelling salts last Wednesday after reports surfaced that the paper’s new owner, Rupert Murdoch, brought Col Allan, the editor-in-chief of the New York Post, to a kick-the-tires meeting with their bosses. Are AXIS OF WEASEL headlines on the way, along with saucy changes to the Journal’s house style (“toe-tapper” is a good synonym for “gay”)? Well, no. As Allan’s pal and Rupe’s firstborn, Lachlan Murdoch, recently told New York, “I think Col is one of today’s great editors, period. However, that is a different question as to whether he could, or should, edit a broadsheet like the Journal.” And Allan himself says, “I could never work there. I’m not a business journalist, I’m a tabloid journalist. I have a tabloid sensibility. It’s just not a place where I would either be successful or happy.” It seems Murdoch just wanted Allan to listen in and offer a few opinions in private.

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Lloyd Grove
• Table of Contents: Sep 24, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!