WSJ staff protest “sick man” headline that upset Chinese government

The Wall Street Journal’s China staff is urging the newspaper to apologize for a headline that prompted the Chinese government to expel three of its journalists this week, reports Paul Farhi of The Washington Post.

Farhi reports, “‘We . . . ask you to consider correcting the headline and apologizing to our readers, sources, colleagues and anyone else who was offended by it,’ wrote Jonathan Cheng, the Journal’s bureau chief in Beijing, in an email to William Lewis, the Journal’s publisher and chief executive of Dow Jones & Co., and Lewis’ boss, Robert Thomson, the chief executive of News Corp.

“Cheng added, ‘This is not about editorial independence or the sanctity of the divide between news and opinion. It is not about the content of Dr. Mead’s article. It is about the mistaken choice of a headline that was deeply offensive to many people, not just in China.

“‘We find the argument that no offense was intended to be unconvincing: Someone should have known that it would cause widespread offense. If they didn’t know that, they made a bad mistake, and should correct it and apologize.’

“Cheng’s email, sent Thursday, was signed by 53 members of the Journal’s China staff and ‘other colleagues involved in our coverage,’ as Cheng put it.”

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.