According to the Guardian, Murdoch announced that he wants to add more national and international news as well as "major coverage of arts, fashion and culture." By upping such coverage, Murdoch will be further diversifying what is viewed around the world as one of the most relevant voices in business and financial news. Former chairman and CEO of Dow Jones, Peter Kann, commented in the New York Observer, "My feeling always was that the paper is best off defining itself as a business newspaper, albeit with often much broader coverage than strictly business. Where you cross the line to become a more general interest paper, I don’t know.”

In expanding its coverage in such areas, will the Wall Street Journal begin to resemble a more traditional, general-interest paper that would compete more directly with the likes of the New York Times? In both of the articles mentioned above, Murdoch didn't hide his glee: 

The Guardian: "When asked whether he was aiming to kill the New York Times, Mr Murdoch replied simply: 'That would be nice.'"

The Observer quoting Time Magazine: “My worry about The New York Times is that it’s got the only position as a national elitist general interest paper. So the network news picks its cues from The Times. And local papers do, too. It has a huge influence. And we’d love to challenge that.”  

So it seems that Murdoch wants to go head to head with America's paper of record. But that's not all. It is well known that Murdoch has plans to launch a Fox Business Channel to compete with 24hr news stations like CNBC, which the Guardian quote's Murdoch as calling "half dead". Murdoch even cited the skeptical New York Times article from a decade ago commenting on his then recently launched Fox News cable station which today is America's most popular news station.

Noting his past success, it is not at all far-fetched to predict that Murdoch will succeed in his new ventures, both with a Fox Business News channel and a more general interest WSJ. As so far as WSJ is concerned, some Internet experts have predicted that in the digital age, general interest newspapers will give way to more niche publications. But considering the present state of the New York Times, Murdoch couldn't have chosen a better time to challenge the NYT's status as America's paper of record.

Sources: The Guardian, The New York Observer, The Wall Street Journal