Robert Thomson tapped as News Corp’s company’s new CEO

Robert Thomson, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and a close friend and confidante of Rupert Murdoch, has been tapped as the CEO of News Corp's new company. 

Thomson's appointment as chief of the new spin-off company is expected to be formally announced this week, according to News Corp officials familiar with Murdoch's plans.

The new corporations assets include Dow Jones' British and Australian newspapers, The New York Post, and HarperCollins book publishing house, Reuters reported. 

News Corporation is beginning the process of splitting into two listed companies, one for entertainment, the other for publishing assets, according to the Wall Street Journal. The reorganization is set to be complete by the end of June.

Murdoch hired 51-year-old Thomson, who is also Australian, to head the Wall Street Journal in 2007; he was promoted to the head of Dow Jones the next year, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Thomson was previously the editor of Times of London and the US edition of the Financial Times.

As editor of the Journal, Thomson "broadened the  newspaper’s focus beyond business to include more general-interest and lifestyle news, …[oversaw] an expansion of the newsroom budget, added photographs to go along with the paper’s signature dot drawings and introduced a local New York section," the New York Times Media Decoder blog reported. 

He is expected to be succeeded by the Journal's deputy managing editor Gerard Baker. 

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