WSJ’s “Washington Wire” turns 75

Tim Hanrahan of The Wall Street Journal writes about its “Washington Wire” column/blog, which first appeared in the paper in 1940 and is still running after 75 years.

Hanrahan writes, “The weekly column ran for decades on Friday on the front page. A 1954 wire features Democrats’ attacks on President Dwight Eisenhower’s business policies, and demands for cuts in Japanese tariffs to help U.S. exporters. In a 1970 wire, President Richard Nixon is pressuring Israel on peace talks, while a ‘killjoy Navy publication’ warned of the dangers of pinup pictures in the event of a shipboard fire. In 1992, a column led with incoming Clinton economic advisers differing on how to best cut the deficit.

“‘We try to cover as many different subjects as possible that are of prime interest to our readers,’ said Edward Behr, who edited Washington Wire for nearly three decades, in an interview on C-SPAN in 1984, the year he retired. ‘That can mean foreign policy, economic policy, energy and environmental policy, civil rights issues — a wide variety so that there will be something in each column for everybody.’

“Mr. Shafer took over the column in 1984, working with Rich Jaroslovsky (later the founding editor of WSJ.com). They worked to get in more late news, and more humor. Minor Memos became a major focus, ultimately compiled into Mr. Shafer’s book, ‘Minor Memos: The Wacky Side of Politics and Power from the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire.’ In the novel ‘Primary Colors,’ the character styled on Bill Clinton is thrown into a rage when he is told about an item that has been leaked to Washington Wire.

“As the wire continued in its familiar format in print, it also debuted online with the launch of The Wall Street Journal’s full website in 1996, as a duplicate of what was in print.”

Read more here.