Moody's Move Up at News Corp.

Here’s the latest in the merry-go-round that is the top ranks of News Corp. these days. It looks like Rupert’s strategy is if the economy tanks, move all your executives around until they figure out how to make money in this advertising-challenged climate. Lucky them. (Total side note: I did a lot of reporting today on the coming upfront and everyone says rays of light are starting to poke through the clouds. Their mouths to God’s ears, say I.)

John Moody, formerly executive vice president of news, editorial, for the Fox News Channel, is getting kicked way upstairs to “oversee the creation of a global content portal to stitch together the editorial resources of News Corp’s newspapers and cable news channels,” according to the Financial Times. The portal will be an internal resource for all of News Corp.’s news organizations – from The Wall Street Journal to the New York Post to Fox News Channel – to share editorial resources. It’s an internal thing and won’t be available to consumers. The idea is to cut costs through better sharing of resources, which makes absolute sense and is something I wish more news organizations would do more efficiently, but I still find it a little odd that the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post (full disclosure that you’ll probably see again: I often write about TV programming for the New York Post) are sharing stories. The two publications have such a different tone to them, albeit — surprise, surprise — a similar editorial page.

Anyway, Moody’s replacement – unbeknownst to everyone reporting on it at the time – arrived in February. Michael Clemente, formerly the senior executive producer of the ABC Digital Media Group, was announced as Fox News’ senior vice president of news on Tuesday, February 24.

What will be the next big executive switch at News Corp.? Any guesses? Or do you think things are settled down over there for now?