How 'WSJ.' Lucked Out with Sarah Palin

Who says a fluffy lifestyle magazine can't break news? Or at least be first on the scene when news breaks, which is not quite the same thing.

For its premiere issue, which will be unveiled tomorrow, The Wall Street Journal's new lifestyle magazine, WSJ., scored the interview every reporter in America wants right now: Alaska governor and possible future vice president Sarah Palin.

It's a coup of timing, but not the sort of story that will reassure Journal purists nervous about the paper's foray into consumer porn: The article, by freelancer Jen Murphy, is limited in scope to Palin's fitness regimen. The closest thing to a tough question Murphy managed to pose was about her Palin's bad diet habits. (She skips breakfast!)

WSJ. editor Tina Gaudoin says it was a vague but lucky hunch that led her to assign the story way back in May, before the buzz over Palin as a possible long-shot VP pick had begun. "I'd been watching her for a while and was just fascinated by her," she says. "I had a feeling she would turn out to be someone important, although I had no inkling of this."

As Murphy moved ahead with her profile, another Journal writer, Jim Carlton, was preparing a very different sort of piece: a hard look at charges that Palin abused her office by pushing for her ex-brother-in-law to be fired.

Those allegations are nowhere in WSJ.'s story, but Gaudoin says that was by design. "We steered away from politics," she says. "That isn't what it was about." While no explicit promise was made that Palin wouldn't have to answer questions about politics, says Gaudoin, "we were very specific about what we wanted from her."

"I do think the way people work out reveals a lot about the way they live," she adds. And readers agree -- or at least they want to know how Palin manages to look so good at 44 -- because Murphy's story was the most-read story on WSJ.com over the weekend, says Gaudoin.