Readers: Journal has gotten worse

Jeff Bercovici of Conde Nast Portfolio asked readers earlier this week if The Wall Street Journal has gotten better or worse under News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch‘s ownership, and 44 percent responded with a decline in quality, while 29 percent said it had gotten better.

Anotehr 25 percent said they haven’t noticed any change. Bercovici also asked media experts what they thought.

He writes, “Ad Age media critic Simon Dumenco has also been digging the Journal lately, although he’s not sure who deserves the credit. ‘It could be that ‘the good stuff’ is just coming into greater relief lately because the end of primary season has freed up Page One. But it could also be that Robert Thomson actually knows what the hell he’s doing — and Rupert Murdoch does too, in having put Thomson in charge.’

“New Yorker writer Ken Auletta, who won a Mirror Award this week for his coverage of Murdoch’s courtship of Dow Jones, says it’s too early for judgment. ‘Some things are better,’ he says. ‘That three-part series they did on Bear Stearns was a fabulous piece of work, and certainly was not a reflection of shorter stories or fewer editors.’

“But, he adds, ‘in some ways you wonder. When you switch to more heavily international news, more heavily political news, is there a danger you’ll alienate your core business constituency?'”

Read more here.