Speculation on the WSJ 'Special Project'

News broke last night that the Wall Street Journal was putting two of their top people on a secret ‘Special Project’…

WSJ assigns two editors to secret ‘Special Project’

From: Thomson, Robert
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 5:14 PM
To: WSJ All News Staff; Newswires_USERS

Subject: Special Ops Dear All,

I am pleased to announce that two of our most talented editorial executives will be leading a Special Project (notice the capital letters) crucial to our success as a company. Jim Pensiero will become Editor-in-Chief and Gabriella Stern will become Managing Editor for the WSJ/DJ Special Project, about which you will be hearing much more in coming days and weeks.

Ooooh!  What could it be?  Some guesses below:

1.  Project Rupert Shield

Jim and Gabriella will be designing a protocol for detecting the presence of Rupert Murdoch in the Dow Jones offices and keeping him from getting anywhere near the bullpen or newsrooms.  Mr. Murdoch is said to be surprisingly spry for his age and so great pains must be taken to contain him and eliminate his reach into the editorial sphere.

2.  Hedcut Hall of Fame

The project involves the building of an exhibition hall to house all of the best portrait illustrations from Journal history.  Kevin Sprouls, original creator of the stipple drawings back in 1979, serves as ticket taker for the exhibit.  Kids line up to have their hedcuts drawn by Journal artists or to have their faces painted with dots and dashes, just like the pictures in their favorite newspaper!

3.  Reality Show on Fox: ‘Dancing with the Ink-Stained Wretches’

You read their columns, you absorb their articles, now you can boogie down with your favorite Dow Jones reporters on their new prime time extravaganza!  Waltz with Weidner, Rumba with Russolillo, Can-Can with Corkery, Vogue with Vigna!  They’re all here and ready to shake it this fall, only on Fox!

4.  Operation: Sign The Reformed Broker

Just sayin’… It’s not like anyone’s been blogging this market quite like I have.  🙂

5.  Anti-Times Maneuvers

The battle between the Journal and the New York Times is about to escalate as the Times gets its paywall into place.  Jim and Gabriella are tasked with training all Dow Jones personnel in siege tactics, grappling hook deployment and other offensive maneuvers to counter their competitor’s paywall and render it useless.  This as the FT looks on nonchalantly, snickering from behind their paywall over a cup of Earl Grey.

Anyone else have an idea of what the secret project could be, I’m all ears.