Dr. Jeckyll? Mr. Hyde? Meet the Journal.
Written: Mar 29 '00
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Pros: (1) The nation's best market coverage, period. (2) Wide-ranging feature writing from a top-notch news staff; (3) wicked cool lithographs
Cons: (1) Lifestyle coverage can get cloying; (2) the op-ed warrens come off as the nation's loopiest funny pages — but they aren't meant that way
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| greggles's Full Review: Wall Street Journal |
YOU CAN LOVE THE JOURNAL. You can hate the Journal. You can do both at once. Lord knows they make it easy.
America's finest business paper by miles, the Journal offers up daily doses of financial market coverage and business trend stories of a breadth and depth that no other paper, save the New York Times, can pretend to match. And if that were all there was to it, I could wrap up this review right here.
But that's not all, because the Journal has two faces. And one of those faces is ugly indeed.
The good . . .
What the Journal does well, it does well indeed. And that compliment doesn't just go for the market pages — one of journalism's best-kept secrets, in fact, is just how extraordinarily good the paper's straight-up news and investigative reporting can be.
Financial Coverage. First things first: this paper's market coverage rules the roost. With the Heard on the Street column and regular wrap-up features to add color, the information dished out on a daily basis in the Money & Investing section of the paper is of such a massive volume that it's almost stupefying — yet so well explained that it's essential. From NYSE to the the CBOT, from the ringgit to the zloty, from blue-chips to junk bonds, this paper's got it covered. Whether you're a casual or a serious investor, you don't need any other source.
Feature Reporting and Investigations. One could quit right there, but reading only the market stats misses one of the prime glories of the Journal: a news staff that pulls no punches. Reporters at the Journal come about as close to having free rein over their work as anyplace in journalism, and with a staff that as talented as theirs, that approach pays huge dividends.
The choicest bits: Every day, column four of the front page carries a story guaranteed to either have you doubled over laughing or reeling in wonderment. As gray as the Journal's layout is, no other paper gets so reliably offbeat.
Just as good are the stories in columns one and six; usually dedicated to the top business news of the day, every now and then a team of reporters will put together a package that blows the door off an unknown story. While the paper goes relatively unheralded next to the crusaders at the Times or the Washington Post, the Journal easily does some of the best investigative reporting in the country.
Also worth a look: the special sections the paper frequently runs on education, technology, e-business, mutual funds, and international markets. That's where the paper really goes to town on a topic, reporting on it from just about every angle known to man — a few of which you've seen already, but just as many of which you haven't thought of yet.
. . . the bad
The Journal could quit right there. But it doesn't, and therein lies the problem.
About a year and a half ago, the paper racheted up its Friday lifestyle coverage and piled it into a section called the Weekend Journal. That would be all well and good if lifestyle coverage were the paper's strong suit — but it's not.
The best way to illustrate the problem is by comparison. The Times has the nation's deepest arts coverage, so when you pick it up on Friday, theater reviews and museum previews aren't exactly a surprise to see. USA Today isn't exactly as high toned, but for quick nuggets on entertainment and pop culture, there's no place finer — and that's just what readers get on Fridays too, right? The papers expand their coverage by sticking to their knitting.
The Journal's cultural coverage, on the other hand, is known for . . . well, what? You tell me. The paper's the standard setter on finance and a great source for news, but not exactly where turn for leisure or arts reporting. Without a distinct voice, the paper falls back on guessing what its readers like — and since Journal readers, by definition, care lots about money, greenbacks are what makes the Weekend Journal section go around.
The results? Somewhere between the mildly amusing ("let's try ordering Christmas gifts online" — gee, novel concept) and the self-consciously affluent ("cutting-edge luxury hotels"; "let's compare the new heavyweight sport utes"; "let's write another half-page golf column"). If not for Joe Morgenstern's movie reviews, there would be no incentive to read the section at all. Unless, of course, you count the simple-enough-for-a-jet-setting-Upper-East-Sider crossword puzzle — and if that's all I can cite, I'd call that pretty faint praise.
. . . and the ugly
And that's not even to mention the editorial pages. And if you talk about the Journal, you have to mention the editorial pages.
If you took Milton Friedman's libertarian economics, added Ayn Rand's paranoia, and mixed in a splash of Rush Limbaugh's blast-the-facts belligerence for flavor, one might come pretty close to capturing the flavor of the Journal's op-ed pages. Run by longtime conservative stalwart Robert L. Bartley, the Journal's opinion staff are the either the junkyard dogs or the hellhounds of America's right wing.
Which would be okay, if the paper were willing to give at least a smidgen of respect to its ideological opponents. Judging by the paper, though, that's way too much to ask. Looking for unsubstantiated rumor-mongering and uncorroborated mudslinging on Whitewater masquerading as reporting? Check the Wall Street Journal. Want constant high dudgeon about scandals real and invented, ranging from Filegate and Travelgate to Buddhist-Templegate or whatever else the fevered imaginings of the paper's columnists think up? Count on the Wall Street Journal. Want a half page devoted to a completely unsubstantiated charge that Bill Clinton is a rapist? Read the Journal. It ran the story even after a major network scotched a report because it couldn't back up the charge.
The Journal doesn't just target itself at the high and mighty, either. Just ask former associate White House counsel Vince Foster about that. No, wait, he's dead. And oddly enough, he mentioned a Journal piece in his suicide note. Its title? "Who Is Vince Foster."
When Foster said that "in Washington, ruining people is considered sport," the Journal's editorial staff is exactly who he had in mind. All too often, Bartley & Co. ditch the tough business of argumentation in favor of slagging the reputation of anyone who gets in the GOP's way. It's not attractive, it's not honorable — and when I buy a Journal, it's not something I'm proud to be paying for.
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The Journal's news staff puts out an outstanding product, but the editorial page is a carbuncle on the face of American journalism. It'd be a much better world if the two weren't part of the same paper.
If you need peerless business coverage or like great reporting, though, buy it anyway. Just remember: you might want to rip out the last three pages of the front section. =,
Recommended:
Yes
Describe the newspaper's political views: It is conservative
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Epinions.com ID:
greggles
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Member: Greg Greene
Location: Chicago, Ill.
Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 10 members
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