The buzz among many in the newspaper world today is the unusual memo sent to staffers at The Wall Street Journal by Managing Editor Robert Thomson.

With a subject line stating only “Special Ops,” the memo, provided to Media Matters from the Journal, announces two editorial appointments for a “WSJ/DJ Special Project about which you will be hearing much more in coming days and weeks. In the meantime, my apologies for being necessarily vague. They will have a large and dedicated (in both senses of the word) editorial staff and will be tapping the combined reporting might of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, which comprise the world's most powerful engine for news and analysis.”

Speculation begin quickly with Politico stating: “Sounds like a new publication of some kind, right?”

Politico than noted two other speculative posts:

The Guardian's Roy Greenslade thinks it's likely an upmarket News Corp subscription publication for iPads and other tablets, to complement the tabloid project now in development under New York Post executive editor Jesse Angelo.

Or these could be one in the same. Another New Corp digital guy, Sun Online editor Pete Picton, announced yesterday that he was heading across the pond to help “launch a digital product” for News Corp in New York.

The full memo is below:

From: Thomson, Robert
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 5:14 PM
To:
Subject: Special Ops

Dear All,

I am pleased to announce that two of our most talented editorial executives will be leading a Special Project (notice the capital letters) crucial to our success as a company. Jim Pensiero will become Editor-in-Chief and Gabriella Stern will become Managing Editor for the WSJ/DJ Special Project, about which you will be hearing much more in coming days and weeks. In the meantime, my apologies for being necessarily vague. They will have a large and dedicated (in both senses of the word) editorial staff and will be tapping the combined reporting might of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, which comprise the world's most powerful engine for news and analysis.

A Deputy Managing Editor of The Journal, Jim is uniquely suited for this role, given his status as the Journal's longtime go-to editor for ambitious new projects. Among many other accomplishments, he helped to create SmartMoney magazine; he led the paper's Process Redesign project in 1999-2000; he masterminded Dow Jones's move into our midtown New York headquarters in 2008-2009; and he has led The Journal's global adoption of the Eidos Methode publishing system since 2008. When Jim leads a project, it gets done on time and inevitably exceeds expectations.

Gabriella, Newswires' Senior Editor for global news coverage, has a 19-year track record of accomplishment and innovation as a reporter and editor for Newswires and The Journal. For the past decade, she has served as a senior Newswires editor, supervising the Asia-Pacific region from 2006 to 2009 and Europe, Middle East and Africa from 2000 to 2006. Since mid-2009, she has been Newswires' senior editor on the News Hub, successfully driving global coverage by working closely with Newswires and Journal editors.

We congratulate Jim and Gabriella on their important assignments and wish them well on the Special Project.

Robert.