Wall Street Journal to include book review section

Posted by Clara Martínez Turco on September 9, 2010 at 8:37 AM

Rupert Murdoch's The Wall Street Journal will launch a book review section, which will be included as a pullout in The Weekend Journal, The New York Observer revealed today.

The section is expected to start in the next few weeks and it will be edited by Robert Messenger, one founders of The New York Sun and former editor of The Atlantic.

"It is unclear how many pages will be dedicated to the new book review, but one source said it will be 'significant,' though it's uncertain if that means it will surpass The Times' usual 20-plus pages for its weekly Sunday Book Review, or if it will be in the same ballpark," The Observer pointed out.

The new Wall Street Journal feature, another step in the Murdoch's efforts to grab market share from The New York Times, will be published at a time when many major American newspapers are shutting down their book reviews section. In the last three years, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times have taken out this section, The Observer reminded.

"Let's clarify that: it doesn't make financial sense at all in the short term. And Murdoch certainly doesn't care. And if Kindles and their kin lead to a new explosion in book-reading over the next decade, this will look prescient. But it won't put the NYT out of business," Gawker's Hamilton Nolan pointed out.