WSJ Pushing Politics As Murdoch's Changes Set In

New York Times:

The Wall Street Journal, which has historically had a thing for guys in pinstripes rendered in stippled drawings, is taking its makeover very seriously. During a week when the stock market fell more than 4 percent, a recession seemed more likely, and Microsoft was putting the moves on Yahoo, The Journal spent almost all of its front-page real estate above the fold on politics, replete with flashy graphics. Out with Ballmer and Bernanke; in with Obama, Clinton and McCain.

When Rupert Murdoch closed his deal for The Wall Street Journal at the end of 2007, there was speculation that the paper's news columns would take on an ideological tilt. Nothing of that sort has occurred, which raises the question of what Mr. Murdoch is going to do with the paper. And the answer after a week of wall-to-wall politics on the front page? You're looking at it.

Four years ago, John Kerry effectively captured the Democratic nomination and made a brief appearance on Page 1, but then it was back to the business of business. In January 2008, there were 23 Page 1 stories about politics, up from 14 in 2004, but even those numbers do not fully reflect all the pages and talent that has been poured into political stories throughout the paper.

Every issue on every day, the front page has been filled with hard-core political news, including a blowout on Tuesday that included a dozen politically oriented articles, three of them on the front page.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Manuel]

01:46 AM on 02/12/2008

The new heir to what was classically the Rothschild Green House, The Aussie named Murdoch, certainly has his hands full with the major announcements not only with Microsoft/Yahoo but much more saliently the removal of Altria and Honeywell from the Dow announced just today.

A story which certainly should be front and center on Huff-Po.

Manuel

[themodernleader]

07:49 PM on 02/11/2008

With Murdock's ownership of the once staid Wall Street Journal, news, entertainment and aristocratic indoctrination will gradually become one. Information and unbiased knowledge will become as obsolete as the American Constitution, Bill of Rights or the American people's right to know.
Murdock is the first glaring model of what is to come in our coming function of servants, servitude and obedience to foreign naked power.

[retreadite]

06:57 PM on 02/11/2008

DesertLight could not be more correct. The NYT is definitely worried. The Ochs Sulzberger clan has essentially ran a once respected newspaper into the ground. They couldn't separate the "news" from the op-ed section if they used bricks and mortar. I get tired of sifting through their partisan BS until the actual point of the story is exposed on page 24. Readership, stock price, add revenue it's all down and that "crooked, big, bad, Rupert Murdoch" and his minions at the NYPost continue to kick the NYT butt.

[DesertLight]

07:40 PM on 02/11/2008

Retreadite, Boo-yah and a I am hanging on the rim.

DesertLight -If you have ever seen a full moon in the desert you know what I mean....

[rich3324]

03:59 PM on 02/11/2008

Does this mean the WSJ is getting a sports section?

[Mike169]

03:05 PM on 02/11/2008

At least now WSJ readers can find out what's happening to Brtiney's baby or who Paris Hilton is screwing without having to go the NY Post.

[Velocitor]

02:37 PM on 02/11/2008

The Wall Street Journal as you knew it is dead. Its soul has been sold to Murdoch, and regardless of its prior history or reputation, it is now just another platform to blast faux-patriotic Neoconservative propaganda: Endless war is endless peace; Debt is Prosperity; Changing America into an all-intrusive Police State is the only was to Preserve our Way of Life...
WSJ has been bitten by the zombie- it's one of THEM now. Believe nothing it says.

[beekeeper]

01:37 PM on 02/11/2008

Why do we allow this overpaid arrogant ugly ass foreigner to dictate OUR politics? Greedy old coot.

[Mike169]

03:06 PM on 02/11/2008

Because we let him.

[PlasticSpoon]

08:33 PM on 02/12/2008

Because he makes a lot of people a lot of money and as long as money motivates, it will win.

[DesertLight]

05:30 PM on 02/11/2008

BeeKeeper, You are talking about George Soros right?

[sammy333]

11:10 AM on 02/11/2008

Mr Living Dead did not need to change much.

In any case, reading WSJ is as stupid as voluntarily reading all the fliers with Casino ads. Who needs it? Any other news channel spews the same deceptive crap for the gambling addicts continuously.

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

09:16 AM on 02/11/2008

To pretend that the WSJ has ever been anything but a right wing publication is naive. They are big business to the core. ALways have been and apparently, always will be.

[DesertLight]

11:06 AM on 02/11/2008

Interesting take on a publication which is notorious for it's accuracy and it's fairness. I know that that before my last name ended in "aire" I read the WSJ so I could be informed in a world of equal opportunity. Actaully, I started investing since I don't believe in selling my soul to any party in order to protect my hope for a SS Check at the end of life while slobbering on my self in some rest home. It sounds to me like the NY Times feels the threat of the WSJ already. Perhaps, if the times were more inclined to print "the news" as opposed to a series of slanted Democratic OP-ED talking points, it might be more of a factor instead of running a fearful smear campaign. But then again, that is fall back strategy isn't it? Fabricate a lie and then repeat it enough that it seems as though it's true and then hope ignorance catches fire at the water cooler and the robots repeat the lie without ever checking the facts. Outside of a nanny state, what do the DEMS believe? I am really curious. And can you string enough words together to form a sentence on your position with out using these words, "BUSH" or "Right-Wing?"

[BlackWidowPilot]

04:03 PM on 02/11/2008

How about we review the record of the "party of family values" you're so slavishly defending:

http://www.armchairsubversive.org/

I'm no Dem BTW, but a life-long non-partisan voter sick unto death with the intellectual dishonesty and utter moral bankruptcy of the right wing of America's body politic and its corporate sponsors like Murdoch and corporate hack rags like the WSJ.

Murdoch is simply doing what he does best, taking a predictable corporate newspaper and turning it into an even more predictable *corporatist* rag. really that simple, neighbor.

Leland R. Erickson

Citizen

[joebaggadonuts]

01:51 PM on 02/11/2008

Ah, but they are shifting their focus. What does Murdoch have to do with the changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average announced today? Why another Finance entity instead of another company like, ah, Google or some other company which makes something? And why ADD Bank of America and NOT take out Citigroup? It's part of Murdoch's plan. Where did he get this plan?

I wish Church Lady had interviewed him like she did Pat Robertson's double here: http://religiousfreaks.com/2006/06/30/church-lady-and-pat-robertson/

[DesertLight]

03:26 PM on 02/11/2008

Joe, I believe that it is called the "free enterprise system." Your supposed to find that kind of thing in a Democracy. And what in the world does the church lady have to do with anything? Business as usual correct? Justify, obfuscate and dodge but give no substance. The question was, what do you believe in? And you walked right into it. Perhaps we should have all buyouts go through you. Have another donut Joe!

[ibsteve2u]

09:07 AM on 02/11/2008

It is enough to make you wish that people like Murdoch believed that those whose last name doesn't end in "ionaire" also matter.