The Wall Street Journal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since August 2007 | Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | Articles with unsourced statements since July 2007 | Publications established in 1889 | The Wall Street Journal | Dow Jones & Company | Business newspapers | New York City newspapers | National newspapers published in the United States | Global warming skeptics | Worth Bingham Prize recipients | Pulitzer Prize winners
|
"WSJ" redirects here. For other uses, see WSJ (disambiguation).
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is an English-language international daily newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company in New York City with Asian and European editions. It has a worldwide daily circulation of more than 2 million as of 2006, with 931,000 paying online subscribers.[2] It was the largest-circulation newspaper in the United States until November 2003, when it was surpassed by USA Today. Its main rival as a daily financial newspaper is the London-based Financial Times, which also publishes several international editions. The Journal newspaper primarily covers U.S. and international business and financial news and issues—the paper's name comes from Wall Street, the street in New York City which is the heart of the financial district. It has been printed continuously since being founded July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. The newspaper has won the Pulitzer Prize thirty-three times[3], including 2007 prizes for backdated stock options and for the adverse impact of China's booming economy.[4][5]
HistoryBeginningsDow Jones & Company, publisher of the Journal, was founded in 1882 by reporters Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser. Jones converted the small Customers' Afternoon Letter into The Wall Street Journal, first published in 1889,[6] and began delivery of the Dow Jones News Service via telegraph. The Journal featured the Jones 'Average', the first of several indexes of stock and bond prices on the New York Stock Exchange. Journalist Clarence Barron purchased control of the company for US$130,000 in 1902; circulation was then around 7,000 but climbed to 50,000 by the end of the 1920s. Barron and his predecessors were credited with creating an atmosphere of fearless, independent financial reporting -- a novelty in the early days of business journalism.[7] Barron died in 1928, a year before Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression in the United States. Barron's descendants, the Bancroft family, would continue to control the company until 2007.[7] Later on, the Woodworths published the paper. Mrs. Teresa "Teddy" Woodworth was a prominent socialite of her day. The Woodworths resided at New York's Sherry-Netherland, sharing the penthouse floor with Cole Porter.[citation needed] The Journal took its modern shape and prominence in the 1940s, a time of industrial expansion for the United States and its financial institutions in New York. Bernard Kilgore was named managing editor of the paper in 1941, and company CEO in 1945, eventually compiling a 25-year career as the head of the Journal. Kilgore was the architect of the paper's iconic front-page design, with its "What's News" digest, and its national distribution strategy, which brought the paper's circulation from 33,000 in 1941 to 1.1 million at the time of Kilgore's death in 1967. It was also on Kilgore's watch, in 1947, that the paper won its first Pulitzer Prize, for editorial writing.[7] Its reputation secure as the nation's preeminent business news and conservative opinion newspaper, The Wall Street Journal nevertheless fell on uncertain times in the 1990s, as declining advertising and rising newsprint costs—contributing to the first-ever annual loss at Dow Jones in 1997—raised speculation that the paper might have to drastically change, or be sold.[7] Internet expansion
A complement to the print newspaper, The Wall Street Journal Online was launched in 1996. In 2003, Dow Jones began to integrate reporting of the Journal's print and online subscribers together in Audit Bureau of Circulations statements.[8] It is commonly held to be the largest paid-subscription news site on the Web, with 980,000 paid subscribers in mid-2007.[7] As of November 2006, an annual subscription to the online edition of the Wall Street Journal cost $99 for those who do not have subscriptions to the print edition.[9] On November 30th of 2004 Oasys Mobile and the Wall Street Journal released an application that would allow users to access content from the Wall Street Journal Online via their mobile phone. It "will provide up-to-the-minute business and financial news from the Online Journal, along with comprehensive market, stock and commodities data, plus personalized portfolio information--directly to a cell phone."[10] The paper's paid content is available free, on a limited basis, to America Online subscribers[citation needed], and through the free Congoo Netpass. Many Wall Street Journal news stories are available through free online newspapers that subscribe to the Dow Jones syndicate. Pulitzer-prize winning stories from 1995 are available free on the Pulitzer web site. In September 2005, the Journal launched a weekend edition, delivered to all subscribers, which marked a return to Saturday publication after a lapse of some 50 years. The move was designed in part to attract more consumer advertising.[7] In 2005 the Journal reported a readership profile of about 60 percent top management, an average income of $191,000, an average household net worth of $2.1 million, and an average age of 55.[11] In 2007 the Journal launched a worldwide expansion of its website, to include major foreign-language editions. The paper has also shown an interest in buying the rival Financial Times.[12] Design changesIn 2006, the Journal began including advertising on its front page for the first time. This followed the introduction of front-page advertising on the Journal's European and Asian editions in late 2005.[13] After presenting nearly identical front-page layouts for half a century -- always six columns, with the day's top stories in the first and sixth columns, "What's News" digest in the second and third, the "A-hed" feature story in the fourth and themed weekly reports in the fifth column[14] -- the paper in 2007 decreased its broadsheet width from 15 to 12 inches while keeping the length at 22 3/4 inches, in order to save newsprint costs. Dow Jones said it would save US$18 million a year in newsprint costs across all the Wall Street Journal papers.[15] This move resulted in the loss of one column of print, pushing the "A-hed" out of its traditional location (although the paper now usually includes a quirky feature story on the right side of the front page, sandwiched among the lead stories). The paper still uses ink dot drawings called hedcuts, introduced in 1979,[16], rather than photographs of people, a practice unique among major newspapers. This method of illustration is a consistent visual signature of the paper and reflects editorial imperatives by allowing these illustrations to be somewhat flattering, and in their consistency, clannish.[citation needed] Nevertheless, the use of color photographs and graphics has become increasingly common in recent years with the addition of more "lifestyle" sections. News Corp. purchaseAs of December 13, 2007, the Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.[17] On May 2, 2007, News Corp. made an unsolicited takeover bid for Dow Jones, offering US$60 a share for stock that had been selling for US$33 a share. The Bancroft family, which controls more than 60% of the voting power, at first rejected the offer, but later reconsidered its position. Three months later, on August 1, 2007, News Corp. and Dow Jones entered into a definitive merger agreement.[18] The controversial US$5 billion sale added The Wall Street Journal to the media tycoon's news empire, which already included Fox News Channel, the New York Post, and London's The Times.[19] On December 13, 2007, shareholders representing more than 60 percent of Dow Jones's voting stock approved the company's acquisition by News Corp.[20] In an editorial page column, publisher L. Gordon Crovitz said the Bancrofts and News Corp. had agreed that the Journal's news and opinion sections would preserve their editorial independence from their new corporate parent:[21]
However, a June 5 Journal news story quoted charges that Murdoch had made and broken similar promises in the past. One large shareholder commented that Murdoch has long "expressed his personal, political and business biases through his newspapers and television stations." Journalist Fred Emery, formerly of the British newspaper The Times, recounted an incident when Murdoch was reminded of his own earlier promises not to fire The Times' editors without independent directors' approval and allegedly responded, "God, you don't take all that seriously, do you?"[22] In 1993, according to the June 5 story, Mr. Murdoch focused on building a television-satellite business in Asia by buying a controlling stake in satellite broadcaster Star TV. He accommodated the Chinese government by dropping BBC international news channel. Murdoch's managers told the South China Morning Post to stop criticizing China. HarperCollins canceled a book by Chris Patten, Britain's last governor of Hong Kong, to accommodate the Chinese government. The Times killed stories that were critical of China. FeaturesSince 1980, the Journal has published in several sections. On average, The Journal is about 96 pages long. For the year 2007, the inclusion of 44 additional Journal Reports (special sections focusing on a single issue each) was planned. Regularly scheduled sections are:
In addition, several columnists contribute regular features to the Journal opinion page and OpinionJournal.com:
OpinionsEditorial page
The editorial page of the Journal summarizes its philosophy as being in favor of "free markets and free people". It is typically viewed as adhering to American conservatism and economic liberalism.[citation needed] The page takes a free-market view of economic issues and an often neoconservative view of American foreign policy.[citation needed] Since the 1990s, the editorial page of the Journal has been criticised repeatedly for inaccuracy and dishonesty, including a summary in 1995 by FAIR[1], and in 1996 by the Columbia Journalism Review[2]. The Journal won its first two Pulitzer Prizes for its editorial writing, in 1947 and 1953. It describes the history of its editorials:
Its historical position was much the same, and spelled out the conservative foundation of its editorial page:
Every Thanksgiving the editorial page prints two famous articles that have appeared there since 1961. The first is titled "The Desolate Wilderness" and describes what the Pilgrims saw when they arrived at the Plymouth Colony. The second is titled "And the Fair Land" and describes in romantic terms the "bounty" of America. It was penned by a former editor Vermont C. Royster, whose Christmas article "In Hoc Anno Domini", has appeared every December 25 since 1949. Economic issuesDuring the Reagan administration, the newspaper's editorial page was particularly influential as the leading voice for supply-side economics. Under the editorship of Robert Bartley, it expounded at length on such economic concepts such as the Laffer curve and how a decrease in certain marginal tax rates and the capital gains tax can increase overall tax revenue by generating more economic activity. In the economic argument of exchange rate regimes (one of the most divisive issues among economists), the Journal has a tendency to support fixed exchange rates over floating exchange rates in spite of its support for the free market in other respects. For example, the Journal was a major supporter of the Chinese yuan's peg to the dollar, and strongly disagreed with American politicians who were criticising the Chinese government about the peg. It opposed the moves by China to let the yuan gradually float, arguing that the fixed rate benefited both the United States and China. Its views are somewhat similar to those of the British magazine The Economist with its emphasis on free markets. However, the Journal does have important differences with respect to European business newspapers, most particularly with regard to the relative significance of, and causes of, the American budget deficit. (The Journal generally blames the lack of foreign growth and other related things, while most business journals in Europe and Asia blame the very low savings rate and concordant high borrowing rate in the United States). Political issuesThe editorial board has long argued for a less restrictive immigration policy. In a July 3, 1984 editorial, the board wrote: If Washington still wants to 'do something' about immigration, we propose a five-word constitutional amendment: There shall be open borders.' This stand on immigration reform has placed the Journal as an opponent of most conservative activists and politicians, for example National Review, who favor border security measures.[3] The editorial page commonly publishes pieces by U.S. and world leaders in academia, business, government and politics. Regarding personal freedoms, the Journal editorial page stops short of agreeing with such Economist-backed opinions as the illegitimacy of the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. The Journal has published articles from influential academic defenders of this Bush Administration policy. It has argued extensively through editorials and guest articles (from writers such as Berkeley Law's Dr. John Yoo) that the prisoners are treated justly, and that the camp is a necessary component in the war on terrorists. The Wall Street Journal also disagrees with the Economist about several major global issues. While both papers supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, they disagree about the Israeli-Arab conflict. Both publications support a two-state solution; however, the Wall Street Journal, unlike the Economist, is rarely critical of Israeli policies in the occupied territories and generally supports Israeli military operations. The Journal in recent years has strongly defended Lewis Libby, whom it portrays as the victim of a political witchhunt.[23] It has also published editorials opposing the attacks by Lyndon LaRouche, Seymour Hersh, and The New York Times on Leo Strauss and his alleged influence in the George W. Bush administration.[24] The editorial page routinely publishes articles by scientists skeptical of the theory of global warming, including several influential essays by Richard Lindzen of MIT. News and opinionDespite the Journal's reputation as a conservative newspaper, the paper's editors stress the independence and impartiality of their reporters[21] and at least one study of media bias has found the paper's news bias is left-leaning, if anything. "A Measure of Media Bias", a December 2004 study conducted by Tim Groseclose of the University of California, Los Angeles and Jeff Milyo of the University of Missouri, stated that:
The methods used to calculate this bias have been challenged by Mark Liberman, professor of computer science and the director of Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania.[26] Liberman says "that many if not most of the complaints directed against G&M are motivated in part by ideological disagreement -- just as much of the praise for their work is motivated by ideological agreement. It would be nice if there were a less politically fraught body of data on which such modeling exercises could be explored."[27] Since this study has been done, the ownership of the "Wall Street Journal" has changed. Rupert Murdoch, also an owner of "Fox News," now owns the "WSJ." Some fear that this new ownership will slant the newspaper more towards the right. [28] But the Wall Street Journal assures its readers that this will not be the case in its article "A New Owner" [29]and an Opinion Journal by L. Gordon Crovitz, "A Report to Our Readers" [30]. Notable reportingThe Journal has had several series of articles which have gone on to have significant impact. They have won many Pulitzer prizes. [4] Many of these have been transformed into books. 1987: RJR Nabisco buyoutIn 1987, a bidding war ensued between several financial firms for tobacco and food giant RJR Nabisco. Bryan Burrough and John Helyar documented the events in several Journal articles. Burrough and Helyar later used these articles as the basis of a bestselling book, Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, which was turned into a film for HBO.[31] 1988: Insider tradingIn the 1980s, Journal reporter James B. Stewart brought national attention to the illegal practice of insider trading. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism in 1988, which he shared with Daniel Hertzberg,[32] who now serves as the paper's senior deputy managing editor. Stewart expanded on this theme in his book, Den of Thieves. 1997: AIDS treatmentDavid Sanford, a Page One features editor who was infected with HIV in 1982 in a bathhouse from "a man whose name I didn't catch," wrote a front-page personal account of how, with the assistance of improved treatments for HIV, he went from planning his death to planning his retirement.[33] He and other reporters wrote about the new treatments, political and economic issues, and won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting about AIDS.[34] 2000: EnronJonathan Weil, a reporter at the Dallas bureau of The Wall Street Journal, is credited with first breaking the story of financial abuses at Enron in July 2000[35], although Weil himself disavows credit[36]. Rebecca Smith and John R. Emshwiller reported on the story regularly[37], and wrote a book, 24 Days. 2001: 9/11The Wall Street Journal claims to have sent the first news report,[citation needed] on the Dow Jones wire, of a plane colliding into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Its headquarters office was facing the World Trade Center across the street, and was demolished within minutes after the World Trade Center itself collapsed. [38] Top editors worried that they might miss publishing the first issue for the first time in 100 years. They relocated to a makeshift office at an editor's home, while sending most of the staff to Dow Jones's South Brunswick, N.J., corporate campus, where the paper had established emergency editorial facilities soon after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The paper was on the stands the next day, albeit in scaled-down form. Perhaps the most compelling story in that day's edition was a first-hand account of the Twin Towers' collapse written by then-Foreign Editor John Bussey[38], who holed up in a ninth-floor Journal office, literally in the shadow of the towers, from where he phoned in live reports to CNBC as the towers burned. He narrowly escaped serious injury when the first tower (actually named Tower No. 2) collapsed, shattering all the windows in the Journal's offices and filling them with dust and debris. The Journal won a 2002 Pulitzer prize in Breaking News Reporting for that day's stories.[39] The Journal subsequently conducted a world-wide investigation of the causes and significance of 9/11, using contacts it had developed during its business coverage of the Arab world. In Kabul, Afghanistan, a Wall Street Journal reporter bought a pair of looted computers which had been used by leaders of Al Qaeda to plan assassinations, chemical and biological attacks, and mundane daily activities. The encrypted files were decrypted and translated.[40] It was during this coverage that Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and killed by terrorists. See also
References
External links
bat-smg:The Wall Street Journal cy:The Wall Street Journal da:The Wall Street Journal de:The Wall Street Journal es:The Wall Street Journal fa:وال استریت ژورنال fi:The Wall Street Journal fr:The Wall Street Journal he:Wall Street Journal id:The Wall Street Journal it:The Wall Street Journal ja:ウォールストリート・ジャーナル ko:월스트리트저널 la:The Wall Street Journal lt:The Wall Street Journal nl:The Wall Street Journal no:The Wall Street Journal pl:The Wall Street Journal pt:The Wall Street Journal ru:Уолл-стрит джорнал sv:Wall Street Journal tt:The Wall Street Journal vi:The Wall Street Journal yi:וואל סטריט זשורנאלzh-yue:華爾街日報 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
