By Jimmy Somemunny
Business Reporter
NEW YORK -- News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch's new plans for The Wall Street Journal include marketing the business daily to young, successful single women by including topless photos of hot Wall Street stock brokers on the inside of each paper.
"Our surveys show that the women of Manhattan want a man who's successful, confident, assertive, family-oriented and has a six-pack," News Corp. spokesman Reba Binkthwapper said. "Our Page Three Brokers will embody all of those qualities, and we think women will just love it. Nothing says 'successful and confident' more than being willing to stand before one million readers wearing only your suit pants and a pair of $500 wingtips."
Norm Birnbaum, a 28-year-old commodities trader in Manhattan, was the first to try out to be a Page Three Broker.
"I was a little nervous at first," said Birnbaum, who works out five times a week at a local private health club and enjoys talking corporate finance during long walks on the beach on the one day a week he's not in the office. "But after Mr. Murdoch took off his shirt and showed me how to look sexy for the camera, it really wasn't so difficult. Although next time I could do without the post-photo shoot massage. His hands are like Australian sandpaper."
Murdoch plans to feature a different broker each of the six days a week the journal publishes. Binkthwapper said the only challenge will be finding enough young, single, hot brokers to keep the feature going.
"New York is filled with hot guys," she said. "But after a few years of working 80-hour weeks, well, you wouldn't want to see most of them in boxers and dress socks. Let's just say we're banking on the brokerage industry in Manhattan hiring several hundred handsome college graduates each year. If not, we might have to find some actual content to put on Page 3, and nobody wants that."