Wall Street Journal Europe and Asia: Partnerships with major newspapers

Today, as the Wall Street Journal's European and Asian edition relaunch in a new design and a compact format, the two editions also start partnerships with major Asian and European newspapers. A new section, called "Across Europe" and "Across Asia" respectively, will feature content from each five major newspapers in the area, reports Media Week. The sections will appear on the European and Asian home page of the Wall Street Journal and are a further attempt to integrate the print and online versions of the paper.

The European section will feature headlines from the French paper Le Figaro, Die Welt from Germany, Milano Finanza from Italy, the Swiss Handelszeitung and The Times from the UK. The Asian section will feature headlines from the Sydney Morning Herald from Australia, the China Daily from China, the South China Morning Post from Hong Kong, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun from Japan and The Nation from Thailand. Every day, there will be one headline from each of the partners displayed in English. Users will be able to click through to the individual sites of the different partners and read the full story. An English version will be provided. Furthermore, the sections will include a country-by-country search function for additional coverage by The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.

Bill Grueskin, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Online, said, "We're very pleased to be partnering with these prestigious publications around the world and to be able to offer their take on some of the key business stories of the day. This will enable us to provide a broader set of stories to our readers and help us build upon our reputation as an aggregator of quality content for businesspeople with a global perspective. Conversely, partner publications get the benefit of having high-value traffic driven to their sites from WSJ.com."

Today's redesign tries to integrate the paper's print and online version (see former posting). Other changes include links in the print edition to the online edition, additional "in-depth" material online etc. Subscribers will also be able to receive news from WSJ.com via BlackBerry or other mobile devices. A small part of the site's free content will be available to bloggers and other users via RSS feeds.

Source: Media Week, Dow Jones