August 24, 2017

"Sorry. This is commentary dressed up as news reporting... Could we please just stick to reporting what he said rather than packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism?"

Said the editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal Gerard Baker, quoted in "Wall Street Journal Editor Admonishes Reporters Over Trump Coverage" in the NYT, which reminds us that "The Wall Street Journal is owned by the media magnate Rupert Murdoch, who speaks regularly with Mr. Trump and recently dined with the president at the White House."

20 comments:

cubanbob said...

And? Carlos Slim owners the NYT so there's that.

Michael K said...

The Wall Street Journal front page reporters have been left as long as I can remember and I have been a subscriber 30 years.

It has always been the editorial page that was conservative.

It's a trend. The Economist magazine is far left now.

Achilles said...

The key part of the story is after being admonished by the editor the reporters in the news room leaked his emails to other news outlets.

ddh said...

Does the ownership of the Wall Street Journal affect whether Gerald Baker's admonition is true or false?

Bob Ellison said...

Gosh. These notions are way weird.

Murdoch is a businessman. He is apparently politically aimless. He hired Ailes to make money, and money they made.

The Wall Street Journal journalism is slightly to the left of the New York Times. I don't know how they keep up that Chinese Wall, but they do it well. Must make it difficult to walk down the hallways.

rcocean said...

I stopped subscribing to the WSJ about 5 years ago. I found I could get better investor news somewhere else, and the News/opinion pages were mostly crap.

Recently, I while at the local library I picked up a couple issues. Holy crap. There must have been 4 pages of opinion! Who wants to read that nonsense? I can read better "opinion" on Althouse.

As for the news part of WSJ. As "Michael K" states its always been mainstream, aka Left. I usually skipped it - unless it related to an investment decision - because it was no different than 12 other MSM news outlets.

It hasn't changed.

Bob Ellison said...

Michael K, I used to read The Economist weekly, years ago. That was the best source of serious analysis of American politics.

They died in the 90s. All of them die. All institutions go left. Sad.

Earnest Prole said...

The New York Times has proved that if you ignore or offend 50 percent of your potential customers, your revenue will fall by an equal or greater percentage.

Amadeus 48 said...

Gerry Baker has been one of my heroes since his days at the Financial Times. Reporting the news and saving the comments for the opinion section: an idea so crazy it just might work.

MadisonMan said...

The key part of the story is after being admonished by the editor the reporters in the news room leaked his emails to other news outlets.

If I were the owner, that would lead to the termination of everyone.

It's not like "Journalists" are hard to find. Replacing would be simple.

Alex said...

When Trump has become 'literal Hitler', the media justifies becoming an advocacy arm for the Democrat Party. After all, they've created this narrative now, justified by antifa that the alt-right are the Nazis of 2017 and 'all options are on the table'.

The real question is what % of the American public supports Republicans vs antifa? Is suspect antifa is not very popular except amongst a college-age demographic.

Anonymous said...

I have sent several e-mails to Baker bemoaning just this problem at the WSJ - although the WSJ is probably the best of the lot in attempting to keep the front page straight news. There is absolutely no reason for reporters to do anything more than report the news. Opinion is for the opinion pages. Obviously journalism schools have failed to the the difference. I applaud Mr. Baker for taking a stand.

Anonymous said...

"teach"

rhhardin said...

The WSJ is leftist in the news and rightist in the editorial page, except now it's deep state in the editorial page.

Also, as of the 90s, it's written for women.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

This just in: friends of the Emperor strongly object to anyone pointing out the Emperor's nakedness.

At least the WSJ's trying.

I saw a tweet yesterday that identified the problem: the Media gleefully, and publicly, abandoned their (alleged) objectivity in order to do battle against Trump. Democracy Dies In Darkness, after all, so it was their duty to be political actors in order to provide the light. Ok. Trump, and the rest of us, now treat the Media as just another political actor...and the Media can't stop whining about it! "Oh, he's attacking us, he's endangering us, he's getting people angry at us!" Yeah, dumbasses, you wanted to be political players and not some neutral objective observers, so now you get treated like just some other political player and the rest of us don't have to pretend you're some noble truth-tellers.

(Fuck the NYTimes...and also David Brooks should go fuck himself.)

Qwinn said...

It's not like it started with Trump, ferchrissakes. It was just as bad 10 years ago, and 30. It just seems worse now because the Left is losing elections across the country and they've gotten desperate.

Ray - SoCal said...

It's nice that somebody besides me noticed the left slant of the wsj reporters!

Agree 100% on the Economist, sad on the biase and decline.

Static Ping said...

Apparently it is now offensive to demand that journalists act like journalists. The corruption of the occupation is now complete.

HoodlumDoodlum's take is pretty much my take, other than I do not consider David Brooks worthy of attention at all.

gadfly said...

The full transcript of the August 25 WSJ interview with Trump, published from a leaked copy by Politico, points to the "Fake News" disseminated to protect Bad Donald. Editor in Chief Gerald Baker is a friend of the Trumps and he orders Journal reporters not to editorialize - an order that truly hides the real truth and exposes Baker's leanings.

With friends like this in the media, we know that Trump's screaming about "Fake News" is in itself fake. The meandering interview was replete with softball questions and non-answers from the President. Reading the transcript was an effing waste of my time because I knew in advance that nothing would be there that is new - except that I found out that Ivanka and Editor Baker have daughters named Arabella.

OGWiseman said...

You should have blogged the quotes he found objectionable. The reporter referred to the rally as "a return to campaign form". That's exegesis? Come on.