Grumbling in the WSJ newsroom

Michael Calderone of The Huffington Post writes Wednesday about the unrest in The Wall Street Journal newsroom with editor Gerard Baker.

Calderone writes, “Baker rose to the top newsroom job in 2013 and now oversees a legacy newspaper, which, like others, is reorganizing around a digital future and making difficult decisions in the process. There were layoffs last week in some of the paper’s overseas bureaus, and more cuts are likely to come. On Tuesday came the bombshell departure of deputy editor-in-chief Rebecca Blumenstein, a widely respected newsroom figure over the past two decades who will assume a senior role at the Times.

“Beyond financial pressures, the question in the Journal’s newsroom is whether Baker will meet the expectations of staff in tackling a moment of great upheaval in American politics and effectively hold accountable a president who is not only waging war on the press but repeatedly uttering falsehoods and promoting misinformation. Baker has never inspired the kind of widespread reverence in the newsroom that, say, Marty Baron has at the Washington Post. And he’s now facing what some say is especially low morale and concerns whether the paper is blowing the biggest story in recent memory.

“The desire to have a dialogue with Baker about Trump coverage stretches beyond reporters in Washington, with concerns apparent in the New York headquarters and domestic and foreign bureaus as well. Journal staffers have been discussing coverage on an internal listserv, according to sources, and some recently requested that Baker hold a town hall-style meeting. Baker did not respond to multiple requests from The Huffington Post over the past week about whether he intended to meet staff over Trump-related concerns.”

Read more here.

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.