A look at how the Journal, and other newspapers, cover themselves

Michelle Tsai of Slate.com takes a look at how newspapers cover themselves or their parent companies — often the job of someone in business news — when they become news and concludes that none of them do a good job.

Exhibit A is The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of News Corp.’s $5 billion offer to buy its parent company, Dow Jones & Co.

Tsai wrote, “Newspapers usually don’t have a formal policy, but the journalism school answer to this question is simple: Reporters ought to pursue stories about their own news organizations with the same freedom they have in writing about any other company. They have conversations with company executives either on background or off the record, and for official word they go through public relations. At bigger papers, this job falls to the media reporter; otherwise, editors pick staffers who they trust will be independent and fair.

“In practice, some level of censorship—either self-imposed or from on high—often seeps into the coverage. In a survey of journalists and news executives by the Pew Center for the People and the Press in 2000, 35 percent of respondents said journalists they knew often or sometimes avoided stories that would hurt the financial interests of their employers. At the Journal, editors with knowledge of the original acquisition bid from Rupert Murdoch chose not to pursue the story for two weeks in April. It was only after CNBC broke the news that the Journal acknowledged its closely held secret. The paper has since tried to make up for violating a cardinal rule of journalism—mixing business with editorial—by breaking stories about the deal. For example, the paper published an article on June 29 detailing how Leslie Hill, a Bancroft family member who was an early supporter of the Murdoch deal, had begun to push for other buyers. The Journal has also shifted some responsibilities to encourage unbiased reporting. Marcus Brauchli, the paper’s new managing editor, recused himself from overseeing the coverage since he had advised Bancroft family members on the deal. Even so, it wasn’t hard for observers to come up with a list in June of 10 stories the Journal has missed about the Murdoch deal.”

Read more here.