It's a museum of insipid newspaper-isms. There's the flat-footed and obvious: "Video Image Search Proves Painstaking." The encomiums to anyone who seems the least civic-minded: "Quick-witted Office Praised." The belabored metaphors: "Heart of Tourism Keeps Beating." And, always, the dogged search for good news in our city: "Police, Vendors on Same Team." With the capper: "Real Soccer Moms Do More than Stand on the Sidelines."

And all this the day after Times Square almost gotten blown up.

The Observer's editors put together their own review, not unlike this one, last week.

"It's over. He made a decision. We're moving forward," said John Seeley, the editor of The Journal's Greater New York section.

"Happy to be home!" tweeted Mr. Baumbach earlier today.

Sources familiar with the situation said that Mr. Baumbach had disagreements with editors at the section and decided to make a move before it was too late. One source said that he was on the West Coast to cover the Oakland A's series last week, but didn't continue on the rest of the trip (this was before the Greater New York section launched). They also said that Mr. Baumbach had reservations about continuing the day-to-day grind of returning to a baseball beat. When asked about this, Mr. Seeley would not comment. Mr. Baumbach, via email, also declined to comment.

Mr. Baumbach represents the second sudden departure from a section that, as of today, is only four days old. Kate Taylor, an arts reporter and former colleague of Mr. Seeley at The New York Sun, stunned staffers by leaving The Journal for The New York Times last month for a similar job on the culture desk.

Mr. Baumbach is returning to a sports desk at Newsday that has recently instituted a new policy in which it is asking its writers to shy away from name-calling or harsh language. The reaction to it has been, to put it gently, mixed at best.

Darren Everson, a reporter at The Journal, is filling in on the beat for the Greater New York section.  

UPDATE: An earlier version of this post said that Mr. Everson is the new beat reporter. He's filling in until they find a replacement.

It was just after 9am on Monday morning, and Mr. Hinton was providing opening remarks at the Journal's launch breakfast for its Greater New York section. The event was held in the Grand Ballroom at the Plaza. Lox, cream cheese and bagels, along with yogurt and quiche, was served. Mostly advertisers and reporters filled the room.

Outside the hotel, the evidence of a broadsheet war was evident, with New York Times street hawkers positioned at every corner of the hotel, offering $2 copies of The Times. The paper put a Michael Bloomberg investigation on its front page. An hour before the press conference, Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and CEO Janet Robinson sent out a memo that was widely circulated to the press that listed demographics--and some dry jokes--at why Times readers are so loyal and loving.

By time Journal editor Robert Thomson presented to the audience this morning it took him a mere 58 seconds to land a punch at The Times.

"There is no doubt there is demand for a competitor in this market," he said. "Over the past decade, the New York Times circulation, in this region, has fallen by 40 percent. It has been a decade of decline. And that is not just because of the upheaval in the newspaper industry. Readers have voted with their purses, wallets and credit cards."

That's been Mr. Thomson's pitch since we chatted with him two weeks ago. New Yorkers want a new newspaper to read. Mr. Thomson believes it'll be the Journal (particularly readers who--ahem!--carry purses, the women readership being a key part of their fight).

The first 20 minutes of the presentation were led by Murdoch lieutenants with funny accents (Mr. Hinton is British, Mr. Thomson, an Australian). Then chief revenue offier and self-described native New Yorker Michael Rooney took the stage with the salutation, "How ya doin'?," finally showing that this wasn't an entirely alien operation.

The boys on the stage were on good behavior when it came to the Times-bashing. There were little pokes here and there, but for the most part, they stayed quiet.

"It's appropriate to have competition and you get a little bit of the argy-bargy that goes with competition," said Mr. Thomson, when a reporter tried to bait him to say something nasty about the Times. ("Argy-bargy": Now there's a term you don't often hear in greater New York!)

Instead, Mr. Thomson emphasized that the New York section's war doesn't just include Mr. Sulzberger's newspaper.

"We're not just competing with the old print media set," said Mr. Thomson.

He referred to the second newspaper as "anachronistic," adding that they're competing with whatever number of news sources you read on your BlackBerry.

"We have to be extremely flexible with who we think our competitors are, not just in the nature of content itself, but in the way people receive it," he said.

Most of them stayed on message, and seemed to review their talking points memo carefully. Both Mr. Hinton and Mr. Rooney kept discussing how the New York section makes the Journal a "complete paper;" Mr. Thomson and section editor John Seeley, both said the New York section will provide a "wide canvas" of coverage.

If there's one point that doesn't seem to have the clearest of messages quite yet it involves WSJ.com.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Thomson told us that "nothing, virtually nothing" would be available for free. If you click on wsj.com/ny today you can find a whole series of articles available for free. I asked Mr. Seeley if today was a special exception and he said that the amount of New York content would reflect the rest of the site-some free, some not free.

That seems to suggest that more will be available, at least at first, then Mr. Thomson let on.

Mr. Seeley did say that the Metropolis blog--what appears to be the Journal's version of City Room or Daily Intel--will be free.

How long will this last? It's unclear, but Mr. Thomson recently told us that, "if you look at where the wall is at The Journal, the wall is moving in one direction."

Indeed, that was another point he made today, after he spit at the "superciliousness" of the "bourgeois" journalistic elite that couldn't make up its mind on whether or not to charge for content.

By time the breakfast had ended, there were gift bags for a room that included mostly advertisers. Inside, there was a ceramic mug bearing the section's new name, courtesy of MoMA, and a free copy of the Journal.

We’ll say!

Mr. Murdoch is ready to roll out a budget of $15 million for his new New York edition of The Wall Street Journal, an insider familiar with the project told The Observer.

The Journal is creating a section that will cover local politics, culture, news and sports. For the time being, the section’s launch is set for April. It is expected to run six days a week. It is not clear yet if the metro report will be a discrete section, or if an entirely different edition of the paper will be sold here.

The Journal has hired a former editor at The New York Sun, John Seeley, to run the project. He’s been taking interviews in recent weeks, looking for recruits.

>>GET THE BACKSTORY ON THE WSJ'S HIRING OF JOHN SEELEY

“I’m not going to discuss anything at this point,” said Mr. Seeley on the phone from The Journal’s headquarters on Sixth Avenue on Tuesday.

Mr. Murdoch, who was an admirer of Mr. Seeley’s former paper, seems intent on creating a New York Sun on steroids. Certainly, a planned $15 million budget—which would go toward building a newsroom, a sales staff, a marketing team, the works—suggests the effort is a serious one.

Mr. Murdoch has been outspoken in his optimism for the future of journalism, but his goal for this project is specific.

“From the day he got the paper, he always wanted to direct aim at The Times,” said a source familiar with Mr. Murdoch’s thinking. “This is the only way to meet that challenge.”

The Times lost its stand-alone metro section a year ago, and has since been placed its metro content in the back pages of the A-section.

We sampled a few New York political consultants and one elected official to get their takes on what impact a solidly budgeted New York–edition Journal could have—and what that could mean for The Times.

“You could drive a truck through the space between the wonderfully titillating tabloids and the perceived self-seriousness of The Times,” said Stefan Friedman, a public-relations specialist at KnickerbockerSKD. “There is a need and a want.

“With the elimination of the metro section, space in The Times is extremely competitive,” he continued. “There are maybe eight stories in the metro section each day. Take away breaking news and you’re down to half that. That’s where you can reach lawmakers, and with the area being so crowded, [The Journal has] a real opportunity from the PR side.”

“It’s a great thing,” said Eric Schneiderman, a state senator from the city. “One of the things that is frustrating with Albany is that people downstate don’t know what we’re doing, and it’s hard to get attention for issues.”

“Given the withdrawal of serious news coverage of politics and government in the New York metro area, The Journal sees that there’s an opening, and if they go forward, they will fill that void,” said Bill Cunningham, a political consultant at DKC. “And they’ll be welcomed by many players in the government of this area.”

“In The Times there are three or four stories about state and city government, which is nothing like what they had when they had a metro section,” he continued. “It has really affected The Times: They decided to become a national newspaper. They gave up a lot of their New York identity.”

And the desire for more New York coverage is not limited to political circles, either.

Back in June, we spoke with Pia Catton, The Sun’s former culture editor—and current features editor at Politico—who said that a new, robust culture section could immediately make an impact.

“The Journal is making a very smart decision by focusing on New York. … The Times has gone wrong by covering arts nationally and casting the net so wide that they aren’t focused on New York anymore,” she said.

Let the broadsheet wars begin.

jkoblin@observer.com

More from John Koblin:

Sun's Seeley to Head New, New York-Centric Section at WSJ

Wall Street Journal Develops New York-Specific Culture Section