Categories: OLD Media Moves

WSJ’s Baker: We’re a better paper under Murdoch

Wall Street Journal managing editor Gerard Baker was interviewed by Isabel Hülsen of Spiegel in Germany about the paper and the future of journalism.

Here is an excerpt:

SPIEGEL: How has Rupert Murdoch changed the WSJ ?
Baker: We are a better newspaper. We’ve expanded the reach of the WSJ, we’ve added coverage of politics, sports, entertainment, fashion and culture. We added new sections and a magazine — while maintaining our core strength in business and financial coverage. Our subscription base is growing. At the same time we became more news focused, more immediate, we made our stories livelier and more accessible. We have fewer of the very, very long-form stories you would traditionally find in the WSJ.
SPIEGEL: Critics would say this is one of the reasons why the WSJ has only won two Pulitzer prizes since Murdoch took over seven years ago.
Baker: I don’t judge the success of the Journal by the number of Pulitzer prizes. It doesn’t say anything about the quality of our journalism.

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.