The WSJ’s opinion section threatens to destroy it

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.

“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.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.