The Wall Street Journal, politics, and the front page

Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz takes a look Monday at how The Wall Street Journal has changed in the four months since it has been owned by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, with more hard news on the front page and more political coverage.

Kurtz writes, “In the four months since Rupert Murdoch took over the nation’s leading financial newspaper, the front page has assumed a harder edge, particularly on politics, establishing the Journal as a high-profile player in the presidential campaign.

“Murdoch is ‘clearly interested in challenging the journalistic establishment,’ says Robert Thomson, the former editor of Murdoch’s Times of London, in his first public comments as Journal publisher. ‘I think American journalism has some soul-searching to do. American newspapers generally have kept up poorly with change. . . . If there’s a presumption that what you might call New York Times journalism is the pinnacle of our profession, the profession is in some difficulty.’

“The swipe at the Times is no accident. Murdoch and his lieutenants, who have made clear they want to challenge the paper for national supremacy, are not above a little trash-talking toward that end.

“‘Mr. Murdoch wants to see the paper take on added urgency and broaden its areas of coverage,’ says Marcus Brauchli, the Journal’s top editor. ‘He’s very engaged in news. He knows what’s going on. He’s got good strong ideas about journalism.'”

Read more here.