WSJ reporters split over Iran story

The Wall Street Journal overrode objections inside its own Washington bureau to publish an explosive, disputed Oct. 8 report that Iran “helped plan” last week’s attack by Hamas, reports Max Tani of Semafor.

Tani reports, “Three people with knowledge of the situation told Semafor that before the story was published, veteran staffers on the national security team at the paper raised concerns about the story, which was written by three of the paper’s correspondents based in the Middle East. Reporters from the Washington, D.C. bureau said that they could not directly confirm the explosive string of allegations shared by their colleagues abroad, and sought more time before publication.

“Curiously, while reporters from the D.C. bureau contacted the White House for comment on the story, according to a person familiar with that element of the reporting, no Washington bylines appeared on the piece.

“A Wall Street Journal spokesperson rejected the notion that there was any internal friction over the publication of last week’s story. ‘We stand by our reporting,’ a spokesperson for the paper said.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.