The Changing Journal

By Chris Roush

May 21, 2008

I’ve been willing to give the new owners of The Wall Street Journal the benefit of the doubt that they wouldn’t do anything to damage the best business journalism in the country, and arguably the world.

But after nearly six months under Rupert Murdoch’s grip, I no longer see the same newspaper I first learned to love while watching my grandfather check the prices of his stocks. And that makes me worried about the future of the paper’s business journalists – and the stories that they cover.

I understand what Murdoch is trying to do. He wants The Journal to compete head-to-head with The New York Times, and not just in business coverage.

But I’m afraid he’s throwing out the baby with the bath water.

The Journal became a wildly successful business newspaper during the past 60 years by focusing on a unique strategy. It would provide the analysis and breaking business news that no other paper could, and it would leave the breaking national and international news to other papers.

Its readers – like my grandfather – read the paper because of the business journalism that they couldn’t get anywhere else. That’s why The Journal became the largest circulation paper in the country – if you added its print subscribers to its online subscribers.

When I look at The Journal today, it’s not the same. I’m all for change, but increasingly I’m having to search for the stories that used to make The Journal required reading for me.

The quirky feature stories on the front page have been relegated to the bottom of the page or no longer appear. The in-depth analysis of companies seems to be missing as well. I like to sink my teeth into a 30-inch profile of a CEO or a company, and yet, I’m not finding those stories as much as I used to.

Instead, I’m finding the stories that I can get anywhere else, including online for free. I don’t want to read about the earthquake in China or the tsunami in Myanmar or the U.S. presidential election in The Journal – unless The Journal is explaining to me how those events will affect the business world. I can get that news in dozens of other papers, and at hundreds of Web sites.

What’s happened to The Journal is that it’s entered the world of journalism where its news is more a commodity. Before, The Journal’s journalism was all about exclusivity.

I fear what the changes will do to circulation, especially from its hardcore business news readers, in the coming years. And I see an opportunity for another publication to fill the void.

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism