The New Yorker‘s Ken Auletta turns in a profile of Walter Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal‘s longtime consumer technology columnist and white goateed gadget guru. Fine profile, but here’s the key passage:

Few tech columnists, though, write as clearly about the subject as Mossberg. Nor is it likely that any print journalist in America is so richly compensated by his newspaper. Some journalists, such as Thomas L. Friedman, of the Times, earn more if one factors in speeches and books, but when, recently, Mossberg signed a four-year contract, two Journal sources told me, his annual compensation approached a million dollars. Mossberg refuses to discuss his pay; a friend with knowledge of the negotiations says that “pay has always been an issue at the Journal,” and that Mossberg doesn’t want to be viewed as a “prima donna.”

Well, the Dow Jones certainly isn’t paying him for nothing, announcing the launch of a new blog, All Things Digital, co-written by Mossberg and Kara Swisher.