The Wall Street Journal, based in New York City and owned
by Dow Jones & Company, is the United States’ only true
national business daily, and the first American newspaper
to aspire and achieve national circulation. In addition to
an American edition, the paper—unique among American
newspapers—also publishes Asian and European editions,
operates one of the few successful subscription-only news
web sites, and provides content to the financial news cable
channel, CNBC. As of 2005 the Journal’s American print
circulation was second only to USA Today (1,750,000). In
late 2005 the newspaper, long a weekday paper, was planning to add a weekend edition published on Saturday with
a higher proportion of softer life-style oriented coverage, in
part, as a reaction to declining circulation, an affliction it
shares with many other American newspapers. Since World
War II the paper has gradually expanded its coverage of
non-business matters although at heart it remains a business paper.
The paper, the key profit center of Dow Jones, has been
controlled since the late 1920s by the Bancroft family
which in a manner reminiscent of the role the Sulzberger
family plays for the New York Times shields it from some
of the commercial and political pressures involved in being
one of a handful of influential and high-circulation print
media outlets in the U.S. In contrast to the Sulzbergers, the
Bancrofts are less involved in the day-to-day management
of the newspaper.
The newspaper boasts a very affluent and politically
influential readership. According to 2003 estimates, the
average annual income of a Journal reader stood at over
$200,000. In the United States, its chief competitors among
dailies are the New York Times and the Financial Times,
although it now also contends with a plethora of television
and Internet-based purveyors of business news.
The Journal was founded in 1889 as an outgrowth of a
financial newsletter published by Dow Jones & Company,
a firm established by Charles H. Dow, Edward D. Jones,
and Charles M. Bergstresser who identified the growing
need for accurate information as New York City became a
national and then global financial center. In its early years
many reporters exploited their positions as disseminators of
financial news to collaborate with speculators and companies. This problem characterized many other publications
as well. Although almost totally eradicated at the Journal,
it reappeared with the trial of one of its reporters, R. Foster
Winans, in the 1980s, who was found guilty of insider trading after he traded in stocks he later wrote about in a daily
stock market column.
For many years the paper was considered of secondary
importance to the Dow Jones’ main revenue producer, its
news wire. During the early years of the twentieth century,
it remained supportive of big business and relatively critical
of anti-trust policies. The Journal was a staunch booster
of the stock market in the years preceding the 1929 crash.
During the Great Depression, the paper teetered on the
brink of extinction.
From World War II onwards the paper under the direction of Bernard (Barney) Kilgore broadened its coverage to
include, aside from strictly financial news, in-depth coverage of economics as well as American politics and society,
and foreign affairs while avoiding technical economic or
financial terminology. This editorial move was made in an
effort to broaden the newspaper’s appeal beyond the financial community and make it into a national publication.
This effort was successful as Kilgore’s reign coincided with
a rapid advance in circulation figures and the appearance of
a nationwide subscription base. The expansion was helped
by the war’s transformation of the American economy from
a quilt of regional and local economies into an integrated
national economy.
One of Kilgore’s most notable innovations was the partial rejection of the traditional “inverted pyramid” style of
writing which demanded the inclusion of the key facts of
any issue or event in the first few paragraphs of a story (the
5 Ws). Instead, Kilgore instituted a more narrative style
that stressed detailed description and polished writing, the
exposition of an argument and a counter-argument—an
early example of interpretive journalism. The “What’s
News” feature, a page-one digest of news stories introduced
in 1934, was expanded into two columns, a business and
finance column and a worldwide column. Considerable
effort was put in the paper’s front page with the assumption that as a second paper for many American business
people it did not have to feature every piece of breaking
news but instead should provide the most exhaustive and
accurate analyses of key business and political trends to
supplement the reader’s hometown newspaper. In addition,
the Journal’s front page is noted for the “A-head” story, first
instituted in 1941 under Kilgore, which features frequently
quirky topics such as a 1981 story on a Scottish dentist who
developed braces for sheep.
The Journal’s editorial pages under the editorship of Robert Bartley between 1972 and 2003 became renowned
for their staunch free market positions continuing the paper’s
long standing support for Republican policies and administrations. The pages have been held by many as paragons of
engaging and influential editorial writing while others have
criticized them for sometimes circumventing the truth and
ignoring facts already reported in the news columns to buttress ideological beliefs.
The Journal had to continuously fight against its image
as a boring, narrow-interest newspaper. Some of this image
no doubt came from its long-time reluctance to use color and
a heavy reliance on text. In 1979 the paper began including
small half-column portrait heads of newsmakers using a dot
laying technique to illustrate stories—a feature now closely
identified with the paper. Color was introduced on its front
page only in 2002 at the same time that a section featuring
personal finance and life-style issues was added.
Until late into the twentieth century, the newspaper’s editorial staff was predominantly male with the exception of
the World War II years when the Journal recruited women
to replace men who had gone to war.
Further Reading
Auletta, K. “Family Business; Annals of Communications.” New
Yorker 79(33): (November 3, 2003), 54–67.
Rosenberg, J.M. Inside the Wall Street Journal. New York: MacMillan, 1982.
Royster, V. My Own, My Country’s Time. Chapel Hill: Algonquin, 1983.
Scharff, E. E. Worldly Power: The Making of The Wall Street
Journal. New York, Plume, 1988.
Roei Davidson