The Wall Street Journal spared no expense in its send-off of its soft-news pooh-bah, Joanne Lipman, last week. Journalites were wondering if it was a sign of corporate bitterness or just the general newsroom parsimoniousness of late, but Lipman, who oversaw the creation of the ad-fat, news-lite “Weekend Journal” section and launched the new Weekend Edition, was hailed with pretzels, cheese slices, and wine in the ninth-floor conference room shortly after the workday ended on Tuesday. According to a witness, Paul Steiger, the paper’s editor, commented on how she tended to hire short men and tall women and read aloud a letter he got from Fed chairman Alan Greenspan about why he liked Lipman’s front-page piece from years back about being a street musician for a day (she played the viola). Greenspan was intrigued by the comparative-wage analysis: She made more as a street musician than she did as a journalist at the time. But since she’s leaving the troubled Journal to start up Condé Nast’s new business-magazine group, she won’t need to pack the viola. Next: Battle of the Baldwins

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