Changes at the WSJ since Murdoch

Business coverage on the front page of The Wall Street Journal has decreased since Rupert Murdoch took control of the newspaper.
That the results of a study conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which tracked the front page of the Journal every other week since Dec. 13.
Here are some of their findings:

In the first four months of Murdoch’s stewardship, the Journal’s front page has clearly shifted focus, de-emphasizing business coverage that was the franchise, while placing much more emphasis on domestic politics and devoting more attention to international issues. But it is not, at least not yet, as broad as the New York Times on the same days.

Under the Murdoch regime, the single biggest change in front-page coverage occurred with politics and the presidential campaign. From Dec. 13, 2007 through March 13, 2008, coverage more than tripled, jumping to 18% of the newshole compared with 5% in the four months before the ownership change.

Since the front page has a finite amount of space, that increase in political coverage seems to have come largely at the expense of business news. In the Murdoch era, coverage of corporate America has plunged by more than half—to 14% of the front-page space from 30% in the months before the sale.

For the full study click here.