CNBC: Where Did The Wall Street Journal Staff Go?

Is it my imagination, or have Alan Murray and most of the rest of the senior Wall Street Journal staff who used to appear on CNBC left their channel?

Time was, there were two Journal editors who used to have a midday stock selection discussion.

Kim Strassel and Dorothy Rabinowitz (I think) no longer seem to appear on CNBC.

And a look at the masthead of today's WSJ shows Alan Murray has moved from being a managing editor of the paper edition, to a senior manager of 'online.'

My guess is that, post-Murdoch purchase, the Journal is fulfilling whatever legal obligations it has with CNBC at the most minimal level, using relatively junior staffers.

For example, Dennis Berman and John Hillsenrath, both relatively light weight writers in the Money & Investing section, appear on the rival channel to Fox Business Network.

But the more broadly-focused, experienced Journal reporters and editors are now absent.

One has to presume that they have been re-assigned to preparing a coordinated online-and-cable-network application of the Wall Street Journal brand to Fox's existing distribution channels.

And a rather sad, to me, personally, footnote. I noticed my one-time squash partner and old friend, Paul Ingrassia, missing from the Journal's masthead. By Googling him, I discovered a piece elsewhere on the web announcing that he left the Journal in July, after having been passed over for the post of Managing Editor.