WSJ reviewing stories of fired reporter

The Wall Street Journal is conducting a review of hundreds of articles by Jay Solomon, who was the paper’s chief foreign affairs correspondent before being fired on Wednesday because of a potential business deal with a source, reports Sydney Ember and Gardiner Harris of The New York Times.

Karen Miller Pensiero, who oversees newsroom standards, is leading the review.

Ember and Harris write, “The son of a prominent diplomat, Mr. Solomon, who worked at The Journal for 23 years, commanded respect in Washington because of his foreign-affairs scoops about North Korea, Iran and other Middle East countries.

“But his closeness with some of his sources made some colleagues uncomfortable. During United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York, Mr. Azima often invited journalists to join him for drinks and dinner. Mr. Azima also appeared in Vienna in 2015 during negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal. In each setting, Mr. Solomon was a fixture at the bar and restaurant table with Mr. Azima, according to other journalists who attended and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the meetings.

“In Washington, Mr. Solomon sometimes bragged about afternoons spent on Mr. Azima’s yacht and showed pictures around the newsroom of himself and his young son in sun-washed locales with the businessman, according to people who worked in the bureau who spoke on the condition of anonymity.”

Read more here.