The Wall Street Journal wants to beef up its local news coverage in New York, so it's hiring around a dozen staffers to cover down-and-dirty beats from the courts to City Hall, the New York Times reports.

The hires are a first step toward WSJ-owner Rupert Murdoch's goals of building a New York edition of the paper to directly compete with the Times and further expand the Journal brand into the general-interest category as opposed to straight business news.

What are the biggest implications of the Journal's foray into NYC news?

According to Gawker, they're four-fold:

• Murdoch, ignoring the demise of newspapers, will corner the market or bust!
• The Journal's shuttered Boston bureau will likely be pissed.
• The New York Post, also owned by Murdoch, should be worried about the extra competition.
• And last but not least, this news marks a good opportunity for New York Times staffers to send out their resumes ahead of the forthcoming cuts.