WSJ: The We’re Schizophrenic Journal(Editorial Page vs the News Sections of the Wall Street Journal)

PoliPundit ^ | 02/24/2007 | W.C. Varones

[SirLinksalot]

WSJ: The We’re Schizophrenic Journal

The Wall Street Journal has a reputation for being conservative (at least on economic issues) and Republican. It’s true that the editorial department consistently takes pro-business, country club Republican positions. But the news department is a different story. It’s filled with journalists who went to the same lefty journalism schools as their peers at the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Witness these different takes on Barack Obama’s record in the Illinois legislature.

An editorial from the editorial department:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110009664

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Obama downplayed his thin federal experience while championing his record on the state and local level, and he talked about the need to change Washington, set priorities, and “make hard choices.”

“What’s stopped us is the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics–the ease with which we’re distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions,” Obama said in his announcement speech. But a closer look at the presidential candidate’s record in the Illinois Legislature reveals something seemingly contradictory: a number of occasions when Obama avoided making hard choices.

While some conservatives and Republicans surely will harp on what they call his “liberal record,” highlighting applicable votes to support their case, it’s Obama’s history of voting “present” in Springfield–even on some of the most controversial and politically explosive issues of the day–that raises questions that he will need to answer. Voting “present” is one of three options in the Illinois Legislature (along with “yes” and “no"), but it’s almost never an option for the occupant of the Oval Office.

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… or this skeptical Peggy Noonan piece on the blank slate of Obama.

SEE HERE : http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110009388

… and an editorial posing as news from the news department ($), in which reporter Jackie Calmes fawns over Obama as a uniter, not a divider, a principled, yet pragmatic, bipartisan all-around good guy:

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The accomplishment was emblematic of the picture that emerges of the eight years Mr. Obama spent here: of a lawmaker of lofty, liberal rhetoric who nonetheless pragmatically accepted bipartisan compromises that won over foes – and sometimes left supporters dissatisfied.

Now that he is running as a presidential candidate, after just two years in the U.S. Senate, most clues about what style of politics he would bring to the White House are here in Illinois’s Statehouse.

Mr. Obama wrote in his recent, best-selling memoir that it was in Springfield that he learned “how the game had come to be played” between Democrats and Republicans: “I understood politics as a full-contact sport, and minded neither the sharp elbows nor the occasional blindside hit.” The Obama campaign’s tangle this week with that of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton shows a willingness to engage in intraparty spats, as well.

Yet he also wrote that through his state Senate years he “clung to the notion that politics could be different,” less combative, more bipartisan. He has put that notion at the heart of his presidential bid.

Illinois Republicans recall Mr. Obama as a committed liberal of no singular achievements, yet one they could work with to pass ethics, welfare and death-penalty revisions. “He’s unique in his ability to deal with extremely complex issues, to reach across the aisle and to deal with diverse people,” says Republican state Sen. Kirk Dillard. “If he surrounds himself with good people, I wouldn’t lose any sleep with him as my president.”

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UPDATE: Here’s the UCLA media bias story ( http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664 ) that commenter Jeff refers to, and here’s the full paper (http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/groseclose/pdfs/MediaBias.pdf). This quote:

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One surprise is the Wall Street Journal, which we find as the most liberal of all 20 news outlets. 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.

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[sine_nomine]

They wrote me to please subscribe online. Ho hum. I used to read Time cover to cover, WSJ whenever possible. I subscribed to the WSJ and loved it for years. I am tired of the lamestream rants. Why pay for them?

Schizo? The worst loud-mouth on TV is from the WSJ. His voice is Elmer Fudd-like. I think the old grey lady is one dimensional.

[Sprite518]

I let my subscription to the WSJ expire a while back because I just did not have time to read the paper. However, I was thinking of resubscribing. Now reading this makes my choice easy.

[IncPen]

ping

[OldPossum]

I, too, let my subsciption expire, but just a few weeks ago. It was an oversight, but I knew of its news section bias and just never read it. I liked its editorial pages and the "personal living" pages (lots of good health information, especially on heart conditions, which strikes close to home). In the meanwhile, I was able to once again get The Washington Times, superior paper in all regards, except for the health info but I can pick that up from any university health letter. And as long as I can get it, no need for the WSJ.

Think I might write a letter to the WSJ and tell them that I got weary of its not being an objective "newspaper" though.

[Athwart]

This is true, but it's not a new insight, nor a secret. Their Washington bureau chief used to be some guy named Al (can't remember the last name) who was a well-known Dem partisan on the political talk show circuit.

Peggy Noonan has argued that what keeps the Journal a high-quality newspaper is precisely this tension between the lefty news pages and the right-leaning (immigration aside) editorial pages. I think this is plausible, and the lefty bias in the news pages is usually mild. When it's not, I just skip the story.

I subscribe, and still find it to be a vibrant, lively paper. It gives off a sense of robust intellectual health that is a marked contrast to the sense of decayed, corrupted, rotting sickness that leaps off the front page of the New York Times, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, due to interesting occasional bursts of integrity, the Washington Post.The WSJ is also doing a better and better job with stuff like restaurant and travel discussion.

I do concede the point that the cost gets harder and harder to justify with all the Web resources out there, but there's something about holding the paper in your hand at the breakfast table that's hard to give up.

[edsheppa]

The WSJ used to be a very fine paper. The distinction between news and opinion was very clear. The news articles were informative and unbiased. Then it changed. I remember reading David Rogers's account (it's been awhile, so that may not be his name) of a David Shippers speech to the House during impeachment proceedings. Rogers characterized Shippers as having been "shrill." This was not an isolated case of bias which I'd noticed increasing for some time. It wasn't too long after that I stopped reading altogether and soon we canceled our subscription.