Talk:The Wall Street Journal/Archive 1

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OpinionJournal

Thames is correct is changing the title of "OpinionJournal" to "Editorial page" (though perhaps it would be better in the plural). The former term nowhere appears in the print version of the Journal; it's the title of a free online site featuring WSJ editorials, opinion pieces, and reviews, plus some hard-right commentary (notably "Best of the Web Today" by James Taranto) that doesn't appear in the print edition. --Cubdriver 22:02, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

David Wessel

His columns do not express politically liberal viewpoints, and are not on the WSJ Editorial page. The germane point is a contrast between the editorial pages of NYT and WSJ. User: Cubdriver's edit stating Wessel's inclusion in WSJ somehow makes it a publisher of liberal columnists is disingenuous, to say the least. I've removed it. Eleemosynary 03:28, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Unbiased

I don't want to get into put-it-in, take-it-out battle, but I object to the removal of the line "The reporting, however, is admirably unbiased."

The preceding sentence (which I wrote) declares that the editorial pages have a conservative slant, while the news pages in their analytic pieces tend toward the liberal mindset you'd expect to find in the New York Times or Washington Post. I'm thinking of such pieces as the ongoing series in mobility in American society, as well as the opinion pieces coming from the Washington bureau. But this is not true of what used to be called "hard news." Here, in my judgment, the WSJ is indeed "admirably unbiased."

Removing the sentence makes it seem as if the news pages overall presented information with a liberal flavor. That's not the case! --Cubdriver 20:15, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the paper's news is presented, at least in the case of individual articles, in a nicely neutral way. BUT, "Admirably" is not an encyclopedic word. Neither is it NPOV.--Zaorish 19:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

The word "admirably" is no longer in the article - Trödel 18:38, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

That period

Could we please drop the reference to the full stop following the newspaper's name on the nameplate? (It appears on the masthead as well, but I don't think that's what was meant.) I suppose there is a less important fact about the newspaper, but I can't imagine what it could be. (The fact that the New England edition is printed in Chicopee MA, perhaps?) Cubdriver

Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens is a 'more liberal' writer? More liberal that who? Ayn Rand and P. J. O'Rourke perhaps - but only just.

He's a self-diagnosed neo-con (see The Atlantic online archive) who regularly does battle with his former 'fellow travellers' of the UK left.

What are these two paragraphs apropos? Cubdriver

Militant?

As the French newspaper is currently being characterized as "militant" in its article I would like to know whether the Wall Street Journal's article on February 6, 2003, insulting French President Jaques Chirac as a "balding Joan of Arc in drag": "The Rat that Roared" Christopher Hitchens would qualify this newspaper as "militant" as well? Just a rhetorical question... Get-back-world-respect 15:12, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why don't you address the problems in that article rather than trying to "balance" out other articles to compensate? -Joseph (Talk) 04:04, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)

Hitchens's piece would have been an op-ed, not reporting--if it exists at all. The link leads to a blank page at another site, nothing to do with WSJ.. -- Cubdriver

It exists. I recall reading it. 171.159.64.10 22:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC) Bert

Liberal bias!

Here is a link to a summary of the report. [1] -- Judson 23:01, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Reads like arrant nonsense to me. A newspaper is judged "liberal" or "conservative" based on the number of times different political think-tanks are mentioned? Sure, that's an objective measurement, but to call it a measurement of media bias is preposterous. 121a0012 21:16, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

^{I sat an pin?} Description of editorial page now torturously reads: The position of the editorial opinion and op-ed sections is typically conservative (or "classically liberal" in that while it takes a conservative view of economic issues and a neoconservative view of foreign policy issues it nonetheless takes a very liberal view of social issues like immigration and gay marriage) I read the paper every day, and I assure you that it is nowhere as complicated as all that. Nor do I think it takes a very "liberal" view on gay marriage! As for immigration, of course it takes a very open (is it liberal?) view: a business newspaper naturally favors a free flow of workers across borders, just as it favors a free flow of goods. WSJ editors are intelligent, politically and socially conservative, and place a very high value on individual freedom. What's so complicated about that? I think it was a mistake to drag in the notion of classical liberal. --Cubdriver 11:02, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreeing with Cubdriver. The WSJ take on immigration is close to the Presidents - it is not nativist but not especially liberal. As for a liberal position on gay marriage... I think this needs to be supported or removed. The op-ed articles regularly air debates amongst conservatives, but they should absolutely not be confused with the editorial board's position. Letting Andrew Sullivan make to case for gay marriage does not equal support. 171.159.64.10 22:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC) Bert

The study conducted showed bias innews stories, not opinion pieces! That point is further elaborated here, http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion_columnists/article/0,2777,DRMN_23972_4353049,00.html

Isn't it a POV to describe the paper as conservative. Any NPOV objections to deleting the word in the introductory paragraph?71.212.116.38 19:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree, because it's POV. However, I also agree because the WSJ is not conservative. The editorial page is conservative, and the news coverage is, to use A. Kent MacDougal's term, professional -- and covers liberal and progressive ideas at least as well as the New York Times or any other major newspaper.

The main thing I object to is people saying, "The XYZ newspaper is liberal because it publishes liberal ideas I don't agree with," or similarly for "conservative". The job of an American daily newspaper is to print a diversity of ideas, and that's the standard you should judge them by.

I do think it's fair to call the editorial page conservative, though there are many different definitions. It shouldn't be too difficult to find a source for that description. Otherwise, it's fair game for deletion. Nbauman 20:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

In a online discussion I was involved with, a right winger claimed that the WSJ was actually liberal. No -- while it did at one point have a reputation of being the most journalistic of the conservative media, it's basically a Republican/Big Business mouthpiece these days (it's been at that forefront of the global warming "skeptics" for one thing). But I was curious to see if this was a widely held belief and some Googling brought me to the Wiki article (surprise, surprise), and there I spotted the section labeled "Study of Media Bias" which uses the Decemeber 2004 UCLA "study" called "A Measure of Media Bias" as an authoritative source in its depiction of the WSJ "as the most liberal of all 20 news outlets [studied]". The thing is, that UCLA "study" is a crock of nonsense. Even that relatively short Wiki excerpt gives a clue with the mention of Paul Sperry and his article, "Myth of the Conservative Wall Street Journal," that appeared in the [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28078 WorldNetDaily]. The WorldNetDaily is a ranting right wing publication of little or no credibility, with its most notable recent "contribution" being a party to a smear attack on on Joe Wilson. Geoffrey_Nunberg authoritatively debunked the UCLA study in a posting to UPenn's Language_Log. Some FYI. -BC aka Callmebc 12:11, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Libertarian?

Is it incorrect to describe the WSJ as Liberterian (or classically liberal)? I think using the term 'conservative' or 'liberal', alone, is ambiguous, and will confuse many non-Americans and Americans alike. --70.16.236.48 05:35, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

News coverage

This paper is conservative, period. The news coverage is not "liberal."

I think the poster was insisting on "classical liberal" (i.e., Edmund Burke) or was conflating "liberal" and "libertarian". The change you made was fine by me, also a reader for many years. However, the Washington columns in my judgment do tend to the left of center, as do some of the news-section feature articles. --Cubdriver 14:09, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

what is pro-business line on immigration?

A recent change declares that the Journal editorial page takes a "pro-business" line on immigration. What exactly is that, and how does it differ from a "liberal" line on immigration? Is Emma Lazarus pro-business when she urges "Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Is that pro-biz? It's exactly what the Journal espouses. --Cubdriver 21:20, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

No entirely but certainly in part. See, for example, the position of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which claims to represent 3 million U.S. businesses. Businesses generally favor immigration because it helps to keep wages down; there are many jobs, seasonal agricultural labor in particular, where non-permanent residents and “migrant workers” have a significant effect on the cost of labor. (Put bluntly, the jobs are so unpleasant and repetitive that few Americans would want them at twice the wage.) There is also substantial business support for the H-1B visa program, which allows highly-skilled foreign workers (many educated at U.S. universities) to work in the country for five years in technical positions such as I.T. where there is currently a shortage of domestic workers. Labor organizations generally oppose both sorts of programs, for the many of the same reasons that businesses support them. 121a0012 02:52, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

One of the other arguments, from macroeconomic principles, has to do with the ability of the economy to sustain long-term growth. Many people believe that, in order to continue growing its economy, the U.S. must continue growing its labor force—particularly as members of the baby boom generation reach retirement and start to spend down their life savings. The birth rate of the native-born population is now below replacement, so the only place this labor-force growth can come from, absent a sudden increase in fertility, is immigration. Businesses generally favor economic growth, particularly in the financial-services industry which still makes up a large part of the WSJ subscriber base. 121a0012 02:59, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Info on redesign

When did the WSJ have the design refresh that also introduced color to the front page for the first time?

Restoring design change info

I don't understand why cubdriver (who seems to be frequent here) would delete the section on the redesign change. The move from 15 inches to 12 inches is a quantum change in the newspaper world and has spurred almost all large dailies to move toward the 12 inch format. That bit of a news which includes the citation is a lot more relevant to the article than a lot of the stream consciousness ramblings I see elsewhere in the article. Americasroof 22:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Check his Talk Page here [2]. It's very telling. He seems to regard Wikipedia as a fool's errand, and is reverting at will. If he does not respond on this page, I will regard his reversions and blanking as vandalism, and will revert accordingly. Eleemosynary 03:16, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. It's kinda scary to see somebody veer so far off the truth. The new 12 inch format is pretty close to the U.S. familiar letter size 8 1/2 inch x 11 inch landscape format. So the ultimate direction is the WSJ is going to be a tabloid!!! That's pretty big news for the most iconic newspaper design in America!!! I'm still working on how to word that news! -Americasroof 04:15, 7 June 2006 (UTC)