'WSJ Magazine' Hires First Digital Director, Expands Video, Multimedia

• by Sara Guaglione , August 3, 2018

The Wall Street Journal has hired its first digital director to expand the online presence of its monthly luxury lifestyle magazine, WSJ Magazine.

Sarah Ball, former editorial director at Condé Nast’s GQ, will now be tasked with building a new digital team for WSJ Magazine (stylized as “WSJ. Magazine”) and oversee all digital content.

The team will put “a greater emphasis on video and multimedia,” according to a statement from parent company Dow Jones.

Ball will report to Kristina O’Neill, editor-in-chief of WSJ Magazine since 2012.

“As the Journal continues to refine its digital-first strategy, the appointment of Sarah is a major step forward in the magazine’s evolution,” O’Neill stated.

WSJ Magazine launched in September 2008 as a quarterly publication. It is now a monthly supplement to the weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal. It lives online as a channel on The Wall Street Journal’s site.

Last summer, The Wall Street Journal shut down eight blogs, including culture and entertainment blog Speakeasy and lifestyle vertical Off Duty Daily.

The changes were part of a new digital strategy influenced by the “WSJ2020” project, an internal operations review launched in October 2016 by Dow Jones to cut costs amid a decline in print advertising.

The review resulted in a round of buyouts, cuts to sections like "Metro" and a consolidation of coverage across the publication.

The Wall StreetJournal has over 2 million subscribers.

Separately, the editor-in-chief of Out magazine, Aaron Hicklin, announced Thursday afternoon he is leaving after 12 years at the helm. He will leave the magazine, which targets the LGBTQ community,after its September issue.

Hicklin tweeted: "Endings come quickly, but 12 years and 125 issues later, it feels like time to me to step down.”