Business has improved at WSJ under Murdoch

by Chris Roush · July 21, 2011

Rick Edmonds of The Poynter Institute writes Thursday about how The Wall Street Journal‘s financial performance has improved since being acquired by News Corp.

Edmonds writes, “For another opinion, I asked a Journal veteran who has written or edited dozens of those big, wide-ranging stories over the past two decades. And I got a surprisingly upbeat response.

“Far from feeling marginalized, he has found the new regime invigorating. Those who stayed are a lot better off, he said, than colleagues who fled to publications like Portfolio or Businessweek. Murdoch protégé Robert Thomson is a demanding editor but a fair one, he continued, and the next layer of top editors — like Deputy Editor-in-Chief Gerard Baker or standards and front-page editor Alix Freedman are aces at their jobs.

“None of this is to deny that the who-knew-what-when phase of the phone-hacking scandal could spill over into the future of Dow Jones and the Journal. A News Corp. without Murdochs or with the patriarch’s role reduced might not value so highly the profile and political influence of the Journal. Resources could shift faster to the company’s highly profitable and expanding pay TV businesses (cable and satellite).

“However, in the highly unlikely scenario that News Corp. does disengage from Dow Jones and the Journal, it will have fulfilled the campfire credo of leaving the businesses better off than when it arrived.”