Alex Shephard writes for The New Republic about the damage being done to The Wall Street Journal by its opinion section.
Shephard writes, “As for The Wall Street Journal, it is facing a dilemma familiar to many news outlets owned by Murdoch. Call it the Fox News problem—it’s what happens when you try to run a credible news outlet with a viciously partisan opinion side. In the case of the Hunter Biden story, the Journal was able to assert its independence. But the long-term consequences are apparent; columns like Strassel’s suck the credibility away from newsrooms, just as programs like Tucker Carlson Tonight or Hannity do.
“A report compiled by the Journal’s news side that was obtained by BuzzFeed on Friday found that the paper was floundering in the current media landscape. The Journal, BuzzFeed wrote, is ‘struggling mightily in the current digital and cultural age—such as not covering racial issues because reporters are afraid to mention them to editors, playing to the limited interests of its aging core audience, at times losing more subscribers than it takes in, and favoring ‘a print edition that lands in the recycling bin,’’ according to the report.
“TheWall Street Journal is that rare thing in the media environment: a right-leaning outlet that does actual reporting. But its reporting is being squeezed on two fronts, its lack of pull in the digital world and the paper’s increasingly deranged Opinion section. In the case of the Hunter Biden story, its news side won a battle. But it might be losing the war.”
OLD Media Moves
The WSJ’s opinion section threatens to destroy it
October 27, 2020
Posted by Chris Roush
Shephard writes, “As for The Wall Street Journal, it is facing a dilemma familiar to many news outlets owned by Murdoch. Call it the Fox News problem—it’s what happens when you try to run a credible news outlet with a viciously partisan opinion side. In the case of the Hunter Biden story, the Journal was able to assert its independence. But the long-term consequences are apparent; columns like Strassel’s suck the credibility away from newsrooms, just as programs like Tucker Carlson Tonight or Hannity do.
“The Wall Street Journal is that rare thing in the media environment: a right-leaning outlet that does actual reporting. But its reporting is being squeezed on two fronts, its lack of pull in the digital world and the paper’s increasingly deranged Opinion section. In the case of the Hunter Biden story, its news side won a battle. But it might be losing the war.”
Read more here.
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