Wall Street Journal - publication

From Wikipedia:

The Wall Street Journal [foundedJuly 8, 1889] is an English-language international daily newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, in New York City, with Asian and European editions.

The Journal is the largest newspaper in the United States by circulation. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 2.1 million copies (including 400,000 online paid subscriptions) as of March 2010 compared to USA Today's 1.8 million. Its main rival in the business newspaper sector is the London-based Financial Times, which also publishes several international editions.

The Journal primarily covers U.S. and international business, and financial news and issues. Its name derives from Wall Street in New York City, the heart of the financial district, and has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. The newspaper version has won the Pulitzer Prize thirty-three times, including 2007 prizes for its reporting on backdated stock options and the adverse effects of China's booming economy.

History
Beginnings
Dow Jones & Company, publisher of the Journal, was founded in 1882 by reporters Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser. Jones converted the small Customers' Afternoon Letter into the Wall Street Journal, first published in 1889, and began delivery of the Dow Jones News Service via telegraph. The Journal featured the Jones 'Average', the first of several indexes of stock and bond prices on the New York Stock Exchange.

Journalist Clarence Barron purchased control of the company for US$130,000 in 1902; circulation was then around 7,000 but climbed to 50,000 by the end of the 1920s. Barron and his predecessors were credited with creating an atmosphere of fearless, independent financial reporting—a novelty in the early days of business journalism.

Barron died in 1928, a year before Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that greatly effected the Great Depression in the United States. Barron's descendants, the Bancroft family, would continue to control the company until 2007.

The Journal took its modern shape and prominence in the 1940s, a time of industrial expansion for the United States and its financial institutions in New York. Bernard Kilgore was named managing editor of the paper in 1941, and company CEO in 1945, eventually compiling a 25-year career as the head of the Journal. Kilgore was the architect of the paper's iconic front-page design, with its "What's News" digest, and its national distribution strategy, which brought the paper's circulation from 33,000 in 1941 to 1.1 million at the time of Kilgore's death in 1967. It was also on Kilgore's watch, in 1947, that the paper won its first Pulitzer Prize, for editorial writing.

The Wall Street Journal nevertheless fell on uncertain times in the 1990s, as declining advertising and rising newsprint costs—contributing to the first-ever annual loss at Dow Jones in 1997—raised speculation that the paper might have to drastically change, or be sold. It is commonly held to be the largest paid-subscription news site on the Web, with 980,000 paid subscribers in mid-2007. As of May 2008, an annual subscription to the online edition of the Wall Street Journal cost $119 for those who do not have subscriptions to the print edition.

Vladimir Putin with Journal correspondent Karen Elliott House in 2002On November 30, 2004 Oasys Mobile and the Wall Street Journal released an application that would allow users to access content from the Wall Street Journal Online via their mobile phone. It "will provide up-to-the-minute business and financial news from the Online Journal, along with comprehensive market, stock and commodities data, plus personalized portfolio information--directly to a cell phone."

The paper's paid content is available free, on a limited basis, to America Online subscribers, and through the free Congoo Netpass. Many Wall Street Journal news stories are available through free online newspapers that subscribe to the Dow Jones syndicate. Pulitzer-prize winning stories from 1995 are available free on the Pulitzer web site.

In September 2005, the Journal launched a weekend edition, delivered to all subscribers, which marked a return to Saturday publication after a lapse of some 50 years. The move was designed in part to attract more consumer advertising.

In 2005 the Journal reported a readership profile of about 60 percent top management, an average income of $191,000, an average household net worth of $2.1 million, and an average age of 55.

In 2007 the Journal launched a worldwide expansion of its website, to include major foreign-language editions. The paper had also shown an interest in buying the rival Financial Times.

Website content is available, like the print edition, to paid subscribers.

Design changes
In 2006, the Journal began including advertising on its front page for the first time. This followed the introduction of front-page advertising on the Journal's European and Asian editions in late 2005.

After presenting nearly identical front-page layouts for half a century—always six columns, with the day's top stories in the first and sixth columns, "What's News" digest in the second and third, the "A-hed" feature story in the fourth and themed weekly reports in the fifth column -- the paper in 2007 decreased its broadsheet width from 15 to 12 inches while keeping the length at 22 3/4 inches, in order to save newsprint costs. News design consultant Mario Garcia collaborated on the changes. Dow Jones said it would save US$18 million a year in newsprint costs across all the Wall Street Journal papers. This move resulted in the loss of one column of print, pushing the "A-hed" out of its traditional location (although the paper now usually includes a quirky feature story on the right side of the front page, sandwiched among the lead stories).

The paper still uses ink dot drawings called hedcuts, introduced in 1979, rather than photographs of people, a practice unique among major newspapers and a method of illustration considered to be a consistent visual signature of the paper. The Journal still heavily employs the use of caricatures, notably those of Ken Fallin, such as when Peggy Noonan memorialized recently-deceased newsman Tim Russert. Nevertheless, the use of color photographs and graphics has become increasingly common in recent years with the addition of more "lifestyle" sections.

News Corp. purchase
On May 2, 2007, News Corp. made an unsolicited takeover bid for Dow Jones, offering US$60 a share for stock that had been selling for US$33 a share. The Bancroft family, which controlled more than 60% of the voting stock, at first rejected the offer, but later reconsidered its position.

Three months later, on August 1, 2007, News Corp. and Dow Jones entered into a definitive merger agreement. The controversial US$5 billion sale added the Wall Street Journal to Rupert Murdoch's news empire, which already included Fox News Channel, financial network unit and London's The Times, and locally within New York, the New York Post, along with Fox flagship station WNYW (Channel 5) and MyNetworkTV flagship WWOR (Channel 9).

On December 13, 2007, shareholders representing more than 60 percent of Dow Jones's voting stock approved the company's acquisition by News Corp.

In an editorial page column, publisher L. Gordon Crovitz said the Bancrofts and News Corp. had agreed that the Journal's news and opinion sections would preserve their editorial independence from their new corporate parent:

“ Mr. Murdoch told the Bancrofts that 'any interference -- or even hint of interference -- would break the trust that exists between the paper and its readers, something I am unwilling to countenance.' ... Mr. Murdoch and the Bancrofts agreed on standards modeled on the longstanding Dow Jones Code of Conduct. ”

A special committee was established to oversee The Journal's editorial integrity. But after the managing editor, Marcus Brauchli resigned on April 22, 2008, the committee said that he resigned under pressure, and that News Corporation had violated its agreement by not notifying the committee earlier. Brauchli said that he thought it was reasonable that new owners would appoint their own editor.

However, a June 5 Journal news story quoted charges that Murdoch had made and broken similar promises in the past. One large shareholder commented that Murdoch has long "expressed his personal, political and business biases through his newspapers and television stations." Journalist Fred Emery, formerly of the British newspaper The Times, recounted an incident when Murdoch was reminded of his own earlier promises not to fire The Times' editors without independent directors' approval and allegedly responded, "God, you don't take all that seriously, do you?"

Features
Since 1980, the Journal has published in several sections. At one time, The Journal's page count averaged as much as 96 pages an issue, but with the industry-wide decline in advertising, the Journal in 2009-10 has more typically published about 50 to 60 pages per issue. Regularly scheduled sections are:

Section One – every day; corporate news, as well as political and economic reporting and the opinion pages
Marketplace – Monday through Friday; coverage of health, technology, media, and marketing industries (the second section was launched June 23, 1980)
Money and Investing – every day; covers and analyzes international financial markets (the third section was launched October 3, 1988)
Personal Journal – published Tuesday through Thursday; covers personal investments, careers and cultural pursuits (the section was introduced April 9, 2002)
Weekend Journal – published Fridays; explores personal interests of business readers, including real estate, travel, and sports (the section was introduced March 20, 1998)
Pursuits – formerly published Saturdays; section was originally introduced September 17, 2005 with the debut of the paper's Weekend Edition; focused on readers' lifestyle and leisure, including food and drink, restaurant and cooking trends, entertainment and culture, books, fashion, shopping, travel, sports, recreation, and the home. The Pursuits section was renamed Weekend Journal beginning with the September 15, 2007 publication.
In addition, several columnists contribute regular features to the Journal opinion page and OpinionJournal.com:

Daily - Best of the Web Today by James Taranto
Monday - Americas by Mary O'Grady
Tuesday - Global View by Bret Stephens
Wednesday - Business World by Holman W. Jenkins Jr
Thursday - Wonder Land by Daniel Henninger
Friday - Potomac Watch by Kimberley Strassel, Declarations by Peggy Noonan
Weekend Edition - Rule of Law and The Weekend Interview (variety of authors)

Opinions
Editorial page
Further information: Wall Street Journal Editorial Board

Editors
William Peter Hamilton, fourth

Critics
Two summaries published in 1995 by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and in 1996 by the Columbia Journalism Review. criticized the editorial page of the Journal for inaccuracy during the 1980s and 1990s.

The Journal won its first two Pulitzer Prizes for editorial writing in 1947 and 1953.

The Journal describes the history of its editorials:

“ They are united by the mantra "free markets and free people", the principles, if you will, marked in the watershed year of 1776 by Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. So over the past century and into the next, the Journal stands for free trade and sound money; against confiscatory taxation and the ukases of kings and other collectivists; and for individual autonomy against dictators, bullies and even the tempers of momentary majorities. If these principles sound unexceptionable in theory, applying them to current issues is often unfashionable and controversial. ”

Its historical position was much the same, and spelled out the foundation of its editorial page:

“ On our editorial page, we make no pretense of walking down the middle of the road. Our comments and interpretations are made from a definite point of view. We believe in the individual, his wisdom and his decency. We oppose all infringements on individual rights, whether they stem from attempts at private monopoly, labor union monopoly or from an overgrowing government. People will say we are conservative or even reactionary. We are not much interested in labels but if we were to choose one, we would say we are radical. Just as radical as the Christian doctrine. (William H. Grimes, 1951) ”

Every Thanksgiving the editorial page prints two famous articles that have appeared there since 1961. The first is titled "The Desolate Wilderness" and describes what the Pilgrims saw when they arrived at the Plymouth Colony. The second is titled "And the Fair Land" and describes in romantic terms the "bounty" of America. It was penned by a former editor Vermont C. Royster, whose Christmas article "In Hoc Anno Domini", has appeared every December 25 since 1949.

Economic issues
During the Reagan administration, the newspaper's editorial page was particularly influential as the leading voice for supply-side economics. Under the editorship of Robert Bartley, it expounded at length on such economic concepts such as the Laffer curve and how a decrease in certain marginal tax rates and the capital gains tax can increase overall tax revenue by generating more economic activity.

In the economic argument of exchange rate regimes (one of the most divisive issues among economists), the Journal has a tendency to support fixed exchange rates over floating exchange rates in spite of its support for the free market in other respects. For example, the Journal was a major supporter of the Chinese yuan's peg to the dollar, and strongly disagreed with American politicians who were criticizing the Chinese government about the peg. It opposed the moves by China to let the yuan gradually float, arguing that the fixed rate benefited both the United States and China.

The Journal's views can be compared with those of the British magazine The Economist with its emphasis on free markets. However, the Journal demonstrates important distinctions from European business newspapers, most particularly with regard to the relative significance of, and causes of, the American budget deficit. (The Journal generally points to the lack of foreign growth, while business journals in Europe and Asia blame the low savings rate and concordant high borrowing rate in the United States).

Political issues
The editorial board has long argued for a less restrictive immigration policy. In a July 3, 1984 editorial, the board wrote: If Washington still wants to 'do something' about immigration, we propose a five-word constitutional amendment: There shall be open borders.' This stand on immigration reform has placed the Journal as an opponent of most conservative activists and politicians, for example National Review, who favor heightened restrictions on immigration.

The Journal in recent years has strongly defended Lewis Libby, whom it portrays as the victim of a political witchhunt. It has also published editorials comparing the attacks by Seymour Hersh, and The New York Times on Leo Strauss and his alleged influence in the George W. Bush administration with those of Lyndon LaRouche, a fringe conspiracy theorist and perennial presidential candidate.

The Journal editorials are a strong defender of US support for Israel and opposes statehood for Palestine

Some former Wall Street Journal reporters have said that since Rupert Murdoch bought the paper, news stories have been edited to adopt a more conservative tone, critical of Democrats. The editorial page routinely publishes articles by scientists skeptical of the theory of global warming, including several essays by Richard Lindzen of MIT.

News and opinion
The Journal's editors stress the independence and impartiality of their reporters. "A Measure of Media Bias", a December 2004 study conducted by Tim Groseclose of the University of California, Los Angeles and Jeff Milyo of the University of Missouri, stated that:

“ One surprise is the Wall Street Journal, which we find as the most liberal of all 20 news outlets [studied]. We should first remind readers that this estimate (as well as all other newspaper estimates) refers only to the news of the Wall Street Journal; we omitted all data that came from its editorial page. If we included data from the editorial page, surely it would appear more conservative. Second, some anecdotal evidence agrees with our result. For instance, Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid (2001) note that "The Journal has had a long-standing separation between its conservative editorial pages and its liberal news pages." Paul Sperry, in an article titled the "Myth of the Conservative Wall Street Journal", notes that the news division of the Journal sometimes calls the editorial division "Nazis." "Fact is", Sperry writes, "the Journal's news and editorial departments are as politically polarized." ”

The methods used to calculate this bias have been challenged by Mark Liberman, professor of computer science and the director of Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania. Liberman says "that many if not most of the complaints directed against G&M are motivated in part by ideological disagreement -- just as much of the praise for their work is motivated by ideological agreement. It would be nice if there were a less politically fraught body of data on which such modeling exercises could be explored."

The company's planned and eventual acquisition by News Corp. in 2007 led to significant media criticism and discussio about whether the news pages would exhibit a rightward slant under Rupert Murdoch. An August 1 editorial responded to the questions by asserting that Murdoch intended to "maintain the values and integrity of the Journal