Praising the new WSJ Weekend

Jack Shafer, the media critic for Slate, likes what he reads in the redesigned and revamped WSJ Weekend.

Shafer writes, “In praising WSJ Weekend, I ignore my general policy of reviewing a new publication or redesign for a few issues until the editors get the beast under control. First issues can be like prototypes rushed to market or out-of-town Broadway tryouts and get better after a few iterations. But the WSJ Weekend seems complete enough and competent enough to stand up to my praise and minor criticism. There’s a lot of good reading here.

“Except for the new nameplate, the front section is basically unchanged. The contours of the ‘Business & Finance’ section won’t surprise regular readers of the paper, either. The radical changes come in ‘Review,’ which incorporates expanded book reviews, the arts, and the sort of culture, politics, and ‘ideas’ journalism that you find in the Sunday ‘perspectives’ sections of newspapers, and ‘Off Duty,’ basically discerning news-you-can-use about consuming (food, fashion, travel, decorating, etc.). The new design isn’t really eye-catching, unless calling attention to yourself qualifies as eye-catching.

“‘Review’ has recruited name-brand writers for its first issue. There’s Kwame Anthony Appiah on how to deal with ‘honor killers,’ James Grant on what a terrible economist John Kenneth Galbraith was, a Matt Ridley column on the science of human nature, a Gregg Easterbrook book review, a humor column by Joe Queenan, a ‘Commerce & Culture’ column by Virginia Postrel, and a lead essay about geniuses and tinkering by Steven Johnson. Often, the big names brought in to help start a new publication or revamp an old one are there for their marquee value only and turn in crap copy. Not here.”