The WSJ’s Tech Sell-Off

Last Tuesday morning, a murmur began to ripple through The Wall Street Journal’s San Francisco bureau: Senior management was conspicuously in the building. Marie Beaudette, a top editor overseeing business, finance, and economic coverage, had flown in from the east coast with deputy editor-in-chief Charles Forelle. Their unannounced arrival set off a growing buzz among staffers, fueling suspicion that something was about to happen.

As it turned out, the staffers were right. Something big, indeed, was about to happen. Soon after they trickled into the building, staffers got word that Jason Dean, a well-liked technology editor who had been at the financial broadsheet for nearly a quarter of a century, had been let go. The devastated staffers made their way to Dean in the office, where they offered tearful farewells.