WSJ new ad: Subscribe because we saw Trump coming

Gerard Baker

A new Wall Street Journal television ad focuses on getting new subscribers by telling them that the business newspaper’s coverage forecasted a victory for Donald Trump in the presidential election, writes Brian Stelter of CNNMoney.

Stelter writes, “The Wall Street Journal is doing it differently. In a new ad campaign, the Journal basically says: Unlike the rest of the mainstream news media, we’re fair, and we saw Trump’s election coming.

“‘Not everyone was blindsided by this year’s presidential election result. Over 2 million Wall Street Journal subscribers, whether they were excited about the outcome, or nervous about it, were ready,’ editor in chief Gerard Baker says in the TV ad.

“‘Because unlike so many news organizations,’ Baker says, taking a jab at his rivals, ‘the Wall Street Journal covered this election the way we’ve been covering elections for the past 127 years: Objectively, and across the whole nation.’

“Baker doesn’t name any names, but one of the readers interviewed on camera says she learned more from the Journal’s ‘Great Unraveling’ series of articles than she did from the Times.

“Another reader is shown saying that the Journal prepared them that ‘this vote could go either way.’ (The readers were paid to participate in the ad.)”

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.