Categories: OLD Media Moves

Attention Rachel Maddow: The WSJ did not bury a story

The Wall Street Journal issued the following statement on Friday:

On Thursday’s show, Rachel Maddow wrongly asserted that The Wall Street Journal “tried to bury online” an article featuring an interview that reporter Peter Nicholas did with President Trump on Wednesday.

Here are the facts:

  • The exclusive ran at the top of WSJ.com on Wednesday night and led the site for much of the day on Thursday.
  • The Journal tweeted the scoop to its 15.8M+ followers.
  • It ran on the front page as the lead story of the print Journal Thursday morning.
  • Even as The Rachel Maddow Show was airing, the article was highlighted in WSJ.com’s “Most Popular Articles” section.
  • It was featured atop Editor in Chief Matt Murray’s daily newsletter sent to nearly 300,000 people.
  • Reporter Peter Nicholas even appeared on MSNBC at 3:07 PM EST Thursday for an interview with Ali Veshi that focused solely on the article. This is the same network that airs The Rachel Maddow Show.

That is not burying a story.

Rachel herself credited WSJ for “a heck of a scoop.” We appreciate the credit, but we’d also appreciate accuracy and fairness.

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.

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