Rupert Murdoch and his deputy Robert Thomson are eager to get the Wall Street Journal's new magazine off the ground. The publication, WSJ., is to get the Journal in on a consumer-glossy bonanza that now nets the Times' T magazine $46 million in annual revenue and helped it grow 12 percent last year. Murdoch and Thomson are so keen on this concept that they're racing ahead with WSJ. even though it was conceived under the Journal's prior owners, the Bancrofts' Dow Jones. So convinced are the News Corp. executives of the magazine's future success that, the Observer reports in today's paper, they are making staff sign a "code of conduct" to ensure they will not be swayed by the inevitable mob of overeager advertisers. But to hear one reliable inside source tell it, WSJ. will be lucky to launch without embarrassing itself on the editorial side, to say nothing of selling ads.

Presumably eager to reach what WSJ.'s publisher has described as the "top top consumer," the magazine's editors planned a debut splash: Kate Moss on the cover in an exclusive article about her supposed emergence as a business juggernaut. The entire staff knew of the plan and spoke freely about it, we are told, which may be how Anna Wintour stole the story out from under the nascent publication. August's Vogue, you may have heard, features Kate Moss on the cover beside the headline, "How the Supermodel Rose from Bad Girl to Business Tycoon." Whoops.

That sad incident hardly alleviated staff skepticism toward another major piece, a profile of PETA's Ingrid Newkirk. Set aside the question of what's left to say about Newkirk. Then set aside that the assigned freelancer turned in copy deemed disastrous and unsalvageable. There's still this: The story in the newsroom is that the freelancer has convinced Newkirk not to cooperate with the assigned staff writer. Ugh.

Journal managing editor Thomson is surely familiar with the Financial Times' successful How To Spend it section — he was a longtime veteran of the British newspaper, and in fact is remaking the Journal in FT's image across the board. But it takes some hubris to try and recreate How To Spend It via WSJ., a project Thomson has not only kept alive but put his own stamp on. There are only so many ultra-wealthy readers to go around, and one wonders how many are still not locked up by either T, the U.S. edition of How To Spend It or the many niche magazines detailed in the Observer story.

It will be an especially tricky challenge if Thomson continues to insist on quintessentially British coverage. It does not escape WSJ. staffers that the PETA story reflects a very British fascination with animal rights — a topic of interest to wealthy Americans, sure, but not to the same extent as on the other side of the Atlantic. One is reminded of the front-page story on Ireland's European Union vote a few weekends ago.

If it doesn't sound too Yank to their Commonwealth ears, perhaps Murdoch and Thomson might consider the bold step of re-re-forming WSJ. as something experimental, unproven and at least nominally unique, rather than as a pastiche of T, the FT and whatever other proven examples they've reflexively reached for.

Or, failing that, at least come up with a truly "exclusive" cover!