Good for Robert Thomson, the Wall Street Journal publisher-slash-"head of content" that got Tim Arango's treatment in today's Times Biz section. He's managed to secure a softer image than a typical Rupert Murdoch operative, eschewing any notion he's going to unleash a pair of Dobermans on his cadets.

Reporters who have worked for Mr. Thomson say he is loyal, almost to a fault. One reporter said he “can’t say no.” And many former colleagues say he is not the type of manager who is capable of easily firing workers.

In fact, the prevailing theory as to why he never became the editor of The Financial Times is because the paper needed to trim its ranks after a hiring boom during the dot-com days, and Mr. Thomson was not seen as the right person to do that.

And he's not going to engage in a smear campaign against his predecessor1

Mr. Thomson declined to discuss Mr. Brauchli’s departure, but generally he has only good things to say about him.

And he hates to offend!

At The Times, he changed the appearance of a venerable newspaper — some would say a British institution. He shrank the paper from a broadsheet to a tabloid format, and increased circulation even as many traditionalists complained about the new format.

“In Britain, people think of it as stodgy, extremely traditional,” he said last year at a lecture at RMIT University in Australia, where he received a journalism degree in 1989.

“So, it took an Australian to shrink it in to a tabloid, or a compact,” he joked. “We used the ‘c’ word, so it was more socially acceptable.”

[NYT]