It's musical chairs at NewsCorp. As James Murdoch moves to Chief Executive, Europe and Asia, News Corporation; Robert Thomson will become publisher of The Wall Street Journal; and Les Hinton is becoming Chief Executive Officer of Dow Jones & Company.

Hinton's email to News International staff after the jump ...

Many of you will already know that I am leaving News International to become Chief Executive Officer of Dow Jones & Company. The new job will be based in New York and becomes effective next week when News Corp completes its acquisition of Dow Jones.

After 12 years, it is going to be a real wrench to leave News International. This is an incomparable job and you are an incomparable team.

I could list all the changes and the triumphs of the last decade or so, but then fairness would probably require me to identify the disasters as well. It is enough to say that the balance weighs heavily in favour of our successes -- great journalism, world-class printing, brilliant selling, relentless innovation. From the back office to the front page, everyone deserves a share of the credit for what we have achieved.

Dow Jones -- with its most famous property, The Wall Street Journal -- is a formidable organisation packed with talented people. It has many opportunities and challenges in common with News International. Both companies can learn from each other, and we will benefit greatly from sharing ideas.

As I leave, it has also been announced today that News International becomes part of an enlarged division of News Corp which James Murdoch will lead. James Murdoch, until now CEO of BSkyB, becomes Chairman and Chief Executive, Europe and Asia, News Corporation. I have known James many years. He is a smart, energetic and innovative media executive.

To friends and colleagues across the company, my heartfelt thanks and warmest wishes for the future. I will miss prowling the building each day.

Long live the newspaper -- in all its many, developing forms.

Les Hinton