Smooth Succession   

Gerald F. Seib replaces Alan Murray as head of the Wall Street Journal’s Washington bureau.

The Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau stays the course as Gerald F. Seib, its deputy bureau chief since 1997 and a well-liked, highly respected journalist, takes over the top post vacated by Alan Murray.

"It's a continuum with Jerry," says reporter John Fialka, who's been at the bureau more than 20 years. "Jerry's been deputy for so long this change is hardly going to be felt."

Murray, sitting just down the hall as the new Washington bureau chief for CNBC – which has a joint bureau with the Journal and uses its stories and reporters on the air--calls Seib "fabulous" and "a very popular choice." "He's one of the smartest people I've ever known, as far as getting his mind around what goes on around here."

Seib, 46, joined the Journal's Dallas bureau right out of college in 1978. Since then he's covered the White House, Pentagon and State Department; shared the Journal's Middle East bureau responsibilities with his wife, reporter Barbara Rosewicz; and overseen the paper's national political coverage and its joint polls with NBC. For the past nine years, he's written the weekly "Capital Journal" column, which he will do no longer, except on rare occasions.

What Seib doesn't have is Murray's deep understanding of economics. So he's chosen as his deputy David Wessel, 48, who joined the Journal in Boston in 1984. He later became chief economics correspondent in Washington. A former Berlin bureau chief, Wessel now writes the weekly "Capital" column, which, in Seib's words, "looks at the intersection of economic, social policy and political policy."

"The bureau is in pretty good shape," Seib says, to cover the big stories ahead. Murray's strengthening of regulatory coverage positions it well to cover "the whole post-Enron, post-September 11...desire to re-regulate to a certain extent." And his own background will help with "the whole question of foreign policy and national security and America's role in the rest of the world...a huge story for the next 10 years" or more.

It's hard to find anyone who doesn't like Seib. His predecessor in the No. 2 job is now a competitor, but no less a fan.

"There isn't a more brilliant or nicer Washington journalist that I can think of," says New York Times Washington Bureau Chief Jill Abramson. "He's a totally great guy. A great human being."