Study confirms that WSJ front page content has changed

An examination of the front-page articles of The Wall Street Journal by the Project for Excellence in Journalism concludes that there are more stories about foreign countries, politics and the election and less stories about business during the first four months of ownership by News Corp. and CEO Rupert Murdoch.

The study confirms that Murdoch’s strategy is to make the paper more general interest and less about business.

Mark Jurkowitz writes, “Under the Murdoch regime, the single biggest change in front-page coverage occurred with politics and the presidential campaign. From Dec. 13, 2007 through March 13, 2008, coverage more than tripled, jumping to 18% of the newshole compared with 5% in the four months before the ownership change.

“Since the front page has a finite amount of space, that increase in political coverage seems to have come largely at the expense of business news. In the Murdoch era, coverage of corporate America has plunged by more than half—to 14% of the front-page space from 30% in the months before the sale.

“Among the other notable gainers in the Murdoch era is coverage of foreign events that do not directly involve the U.S., which jumped to 25% from 18%. (Roughly one third of that (9%) is related to overseas economic and business affairs.) Coverage of government also increased a bit, up to 4% from 3%.”

Read more here.