Reviewing the Barney Kilgore story

Myron Kandel, founding financial editor at CNN and a longtime business journalist, reviews the Richard Tofel book “Restless Genius” about Barney Kilgore, who turned The Wall Street Journal into America’s top business newspaper.

Kandel, in a review in The Journal, writes, “While researching his biography, Mr. Tofel — who worked at the Journal in several capacities, including assistant managing editor and assistant publisher (he left the paper in 2004) — was allowed access to 30 years of correspondence between Kilgore and his father. One letter, written when Barney was just starting at DePauw, epitomizes the elder Kilgore’s stern but loving persona.

“‘The main thing is to train your mind in clear and straight thinking,’ he wrote to his son. ‘The habits of thought you are forming now will stay with you as long as you live.’ It is not hard to see how such words themselves helped to form the man who would, for decades, define the Journal’s reportorial voice and defend its integrity.

“In his early years at the paper’s helm, Kilgore introduced front-page summary columns and, more important, spruced up the paper’s content and writing, introducing the famous anecdotal ‘leaders.’ His changes broadened the Journal’s appeal beyond the financial community to the business world at large. He raised the paper’s stature in other ways as well.

“While it may be hard to believe today, in the mid-1950s General Motors was so powerful, and its advertising so important, that few publications dared risk its displeasure. But the Journal engaged in some very aggressive reporting on the auto industry, culminating in a report that included unauthorized illustrations of upcoming GM models. The company was furious and pulled its advertising. Kilgore stood his ground, and GM backed down.”

Read more here.