So apparently there is a need to “panic” ?
I’ll be more honest than most and admit that I don’t know the facts…but I’m pretty confident we’ll adapt.
umadbro?
I, too, was unaware that Murdoch of Fox “News” fame had bought the WSJ. I have noticed that WSJ editorials have become increasingly sensationalized and controversial in their right-leaning bias and I don’t know how long I’ve been noticing it, but it’s been a lot longer than four years.
I haven’t seen it discussed in this thread, but one of the first things I learned in my early Journalism courses was that the composition of a periodical’s staff is usually not accidental. First off, a periodical (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly publication) starts out trying to fit into a niche and sell to a particular audience with particular predispositions. Second, the staffing of a periodical, from its copy-editors to its ad-buyers to its section editors and executives, is chosen to fit the overall bias of the periodical and, by extension, the audience it wants to reach and build. Basically, it’s just easier and more cost-efficient to hire people whose bias fits that of the intended audience. NASCAR-loving, gun-toting, single macho men won’t be hired to buy ads for Ladies Home Journal; they wouldn’t be expected to know the audience or the ad-buyers’ products. [This is not to say the same corporation won’t publish both Ladies Home Journal and Hot Rod, but their editorial staff will be different and probably not sub in for each other.]
Journalism is an extremely competitive profession and writers win, keep, and lose positions based on their ability to 1) fit their writing to the audience’s tastes, 2) meet deadlines. Remember that the section-editors know well enough how to fit the audience’s tastes and so they’ll hire writers who can do that most efficiently. And it’s obvious that a journalist may be fired for failing to meet deadlines, but not so obvious that a journalist who isn’t writing with the write bias will be told to rewrite – and that will cause him/her to miss deadlines… It’s easier, then, for an editor to ask for writing samples and figure out before hiring whether or not a prospective reporter fits the periodical’s culture and audience.
Fox Broadcasting (I guess that’s Murdoch, too, huh?) argues that these intrinsic not-so-subtle biases have always existed and have increasingly been leftward biases – and therefore leftward biases upon the world. They advance that argument as response/defense against the accusation that their own not-so-subtle biases are clearly rightward biases.
Beyond the editorials page, you won’t see bias in the facts that a reporter includes in his articles, but if you read carefully enough you’ll be able to see bias by the way some facts are emphasized and others are downplayed or dismissed. [If you read this response carefully enough, you can see my bias about the matter, as well.] The ability to do that, with a bias one way or another, is part of why an editor hires the writers she hires. Bias is also presented in a subtle way by the way stories are sequenced and placed in the periodical (Front page, top? Last page, top? Page 4, bottom right?) and how much continuity it is afforded {continued on page 4, top left} or not. After all, not every story can take the lead position and the decision of how to lay them out is ultimately in conformance with the publication’s bias. Other people have already mentioned bias in topic frequency and depth-of-coverage. Some have also noted that a periodical, despite whatever it says on the masthead, is not a scholarly journal.
It should, therefore, be obvious from the masthead alone that the Wall Street Journal is aimed toward a profit-seeking, finance-concerned audience.
The key component of the AGW argument is that something must be done to reduce pollutants that are, ultimately, harmful to humans and their environment (setting aside, for the moment, any concern for the other flora or fauna inhabiting this planet). Reduction in pollutants tends to imply reduced usage of resources for manufacturing, distribution, etcetera, and generally implies a slow-down of business – reduced profits – which is the last thing a profit-seeking finance-concerned audience wants to hear. What they want to hear, what appeases their interest and generates even more interested readers, is substantiation of arguments that suggest somehow that their profits and financial stability (if not gains) should not be threatened.
WSJ is a business like any other; it’s trying to stay in business and make a profit. Like any other business, it will adhere to the timeless business adage: Give the people what they want, or they’ll find someone else who will."
Is that GOOD journalism?
Well, I’ll admit, I’m biassed…
----G!
The left say “yes”
and the right says “no”
I so confused
and the more I learn
Well, the less that I know
. --Dennis De Young (Styx)
. Borrowed Time
. Cornerstone