The founding editor of the Wall Street Journal's glossy lifestyle magazine has flown the coop. The newspaper is making kindly noises about the departure, but we hear the editor, Tina Gaudoin, has wanted out since at least last summer.

Gaudoin told Women's Wear Daily she wants to be closer to her husband in London rather than maintaining a long-distance relationship from New York, which was "just not sustainable." True, according to what a source told us, but it's also worth noting that Gaudoin's been "DESPERATE to leave Manhattan" since mid 2009, according to the same source, when her name was in the ring to helm Tatler. This was before the editor's husband took his London job in the fall.

The source, who predicted Gaudoin's return to London months ago, speculated at the time she was fleeing the cock-up that WSJ. had become. The magazine's launch was beset by bungled story and writer selection , and hit just as the economy imploded. So WSJ. didn't launch as a monthly as planned ; it also never went monthly in 2009 as announced and only recently expanded to an every-other-monthl schedule. Wall Street Journal editor Robert Thomson, who hired Gaudoin from the Times of London, has put a decidedly British spin on parts of the magazine. He seems to be happy: Today he is calling the magazine a "phenomenal success" in WWD and bragging about "more than 80 new advertisers" in a staff memo. Hopefully for the Journal's sake that means the magazine is finally profitable as originally foreseen. It doesn't need to be Google profitable; "not hemorrhaging money" will do quite nicely given the state of the newspaper industry these days.

[Photo via Guest of a Guest]