Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is a U.S. business-focused, English-language international daily newspaper based in New York City. The Journal, along with its Asian and European editions, is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp. The newspaper is published in the broadsheet format and online. The Journal has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser.

The Wall Street Journal is one of the largest newspapers in the United States by circulation, with a circulation of about 2.617 million copies (including nearly 1,818,000 digital subscriptions) as of August 2019,[1]  compared with USA Today's 1.7 million. The Journal publishes the luxury news and lifestyle magazine ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSJ. WSJ],'' which was originally launched as a quarterly but expanded to 12 issues as of 2014. An online version was launched in 1996, which has been accessible only to subscribers since it began.[2]

The newspaper is known for its award-winning news coverage, and has won 37 Pulitzer Prizes (as of 2019).[3] [4]  The editorial pages of the Journal are typically conservative in their position.[5] [6] [7]  The Journal editorial board has promoted pseudoscientific views on the science of climate change, acid rain, and ozone depletion, as well as on the health harms of second-hand smoke, pesticides and asbestos.[8]

Beginings
The first products of Dow Jones & Company, the publisher of the Journal, were brief news bulletins, nicknamed "flimsies", hand-delivered throughout the day to traders at the stock exchange in the early 1880s. They were later aggregated in a printed daily summary called the Customers' Afternoon Letter. Reporters Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser converted this into The Wall Street Journal, which was published for the first time on July 8, 1889, and began delivery of the Dow Jones News Service via telegraph.[9]  In 1896, The "Dow Jones Industrial Average" was officially launched. It was the first of several indices of stock and bond prices on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1899, the Journal's Review & Outlook column, which still runs today, appeared for the first time, initially written by Charles Dow.

Journalist Clarence Barron purchased control of the company for US$130,000 in 1902; circulation was then around 7,000 but climbed to 50,000 by the end of the 1920s. Barron and his predecessors were credited with creating an atmosphere of fearless, independent financial reporting—a novelty in the early days of business journalism. In 1921, Barron's, the United States's premier financial weekly, was founded.[10]  Barron died in 1928, a year before Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that greatly affected the Great Depression in the United States. Barron's descendants, the Bancroft family, would continue to control the company until 2007.[10]

The Journal took its modern shape and prominence in the 1940s, a time of industrial expansion for the United States and its financial institutions in New York. Bernard Kilgorewas named managing editor of the paper in 1941, and company CEO in 1945, eventually compiling a 25-year career as the head of the Journal. Kilgore was the architect of the paper's iconic front-page design, with its "What's News" digest, and its national distribution strategy, which brought the paper's circulation from 33,000 in 1941 to 1.1 million when Kilgore died in 1967. Under Kilgore, in 1947, the paper won its first Pulitzer Prize for William Henry Grimes's editorials.[10]

In 1967, Dow Jones Newswires began a major expansion outside of the United States ultimately placing its journalists in every major financial center in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Australia, and Africa. In 1970, Dow Jones bought the Ottaway newspaper chain, which at the time comprised nine dailies and three Sunday newspapers. Later, the name was changed to Dow Jones Local Media Group.[11]

The period from 1971 to 1997 brought about a series of launches, acquisitions, and joint ventures, including "Factiva", The Wall Street Journal Asia, The Wall Street Journal Europe, the WSJ.com website, Dow Jones Indexes, MarketWatch, and "WSJ Weekend Edition". In 2007, News Corp. acquired Dow Jones. ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSJ. WSJ.]'', a luxury lifestyle magazine, was launched in 2008.[12]

Internet Exspansion
A complement to the print newspaper, The Wall Street Journal Online, was launched in 1996 and has allowed access only by subscription from the beginning.[13]  In 2003, Dow Jones began to integrate reporting of the Journal's print and online subscribers together in Audit Bureau of Circulations statements.[14]  In 2007, it was commonly believed to be the largest paid-subscription news site on the Web, with 980,000 paid subscribers.<sup id="cite_ref-Crossen_10-3">[10]  Since then, digital subscription has risen to 1.3 million as of September 2018, falling to number two behind The New York Times with 3 million digital subscriptions.<sup id="cite_ref-15">[15]  In May 2008, an annual subscription to the online edition of The Wall Street Journal cost $119 for those who do not have subscriptions to the print edition. By June 2013, the monthly cost for a subscription to the online edition was $22.99, or $275.88 annually, excluding introductory offers.<sup id="cite_ref-16">[16]  Digital subscription rates increased dramatically as its popularity increased over print to $443.88 per year, with first time subscribers paying $187.20 per year.<sup id="cite_ref-17">[17]



Vladimir Putin with Journalcorrespondent Karen Elliott House in 2002

On November 30, 2004, Oasys Mobile and The Wall Street Journal released an app that would allow users to access content from The Wall Street Journal Online via their mobile phones.<sup id="cite_ref-18">[18]

Many of The Wall Street Journal news stories are available through free online newspapers that subscribe to the Dow Jones syndicate.[citation needed] Pulitzer Prize–winning stories from 1995 are available free on the Pulitzer<sup id="cite_ref-19">[19]  web site.

In September 2005, the Journal launched a weekend edition, delivered to all subscribers, which marked a return to Saturday publication after a lapse of some 50 years. The move was designed in part to attract more consumer advertising.<sup id="cite_ref-Crossen_10-4">[10]

In 2005, the Journal reported a readership profile of about 60 percent top management, an average income of $191,000, an average household net worth of $2.1 million, and an average age of 55.<sup id="cite_ref-20">[20]

In 2007, the Journal launched a worldwide expansion of its website to include major foreign-language editions. The paper had also shown an interest in buying the rival Financial Times.<sup id="cite_ref-guardian1_21-0">[21]

Design changes
The nameplate is unique in having a period at the end.<sup id="cite_ref-22">[22]

On September 5, 2006, the Journal included advertising on its front page for the first time. This followed the introduction of front-page advertising on the European and Asian editions in late 2005.<sup id="cite_ref-23">[23]

After presenting nearly identical front-page layouts for half a century—always six columns, with the day's top stories in the first and sixth columns, "What's News" digest in the second and third, the "A-hed" feature story in the fourth (with 'hed' being jargon for headline) and themed weekly reports in the fifth column<sup id="cite_ref-24">[24]  – the paper in 2007 decreased its broadsheet width from 15 to 12 inches while keeping the length at 22​3⁄4 inches, to save newsprint costs. News design consultant Mario Garcia collaborated on the changes. Dow Jones said it would save US$18 million a year in newsprint costs across all The Wall Street Journalpapers.<sup id="cite_ref-25">[25]  This move eliminated one column of print, pushing the "A-hed" out of its traditional location (though the paper now usually includes a quirky feature story on the right side of the front page, sandwiched among the lead stories).

The paper still[when?] uses ink dot drawings called hedcuts, introduced in 1979 and originally created by Kevin Sprouls,<sup id="cite_ref-26">[26]  in addition to photographs, a method of illustration considered a consistent visual signature of the paper. The Journal still heavily employs the use of caricatures, including those by illustrator Ken Fallin, such as when Peggy Noonan memorialized then-recently deceased newsman Tim Russert.<sup id="cite_ref-27">[27] <sup id="cite_ref-Biz_28-0">[28]  The use of color photographs and graphics has become increasingly common in recent years with the addition of more "lifestyle" sections.

The daily was awarded by the Society for News Design World's Best Designed Newspaper award for 1994 and 1997.<sup id="cite_ref-29">[29]

News Corparation and news corp
On May 2, 2007, News Corporation made an unsolicited takeover bid for Dow Jones, offering US$60 a share for stock that had been selling for US$33 a share. The Bancroft family, which controlled more than 60% of the voting stock, at first rejected the offer, but later reconsidered its position.<sup id="cite_ref-30">[30]

Three months later, on August 1, 2007, News Corporation and Dow Jones entered into a definitive merger agreement.<sup id="cite_ref-31">[31]  The US$5 billion sale added The Wall Street Journal to Rupert Murdoch's news empire, which already included Fox News Channel, financial network unit and London's The Times, and locally within New York, the New York Post, along with Fox flagship station WNYW (Channel 5) and MyNetworkTVflagship WWOR (Channel 9).<sup id="cite_ref-32">[32]

On December 13, 2007, shareholders representing more than 60 percent of Dow Jones's voting stock approved the company's acquisition by News Corporation.<sup id="cite_ref-33">[33]

In an editorial page column, publisher L. Gordon Crovitz said the Bancrofts and News Corporation had agreed that the Journal's news and opinion sections would preserve their editorial independence from their new corporate parent:<sup id="cite_ref-Crovitz_34-0">[34]

A special committee was established to oversee the paper's editorial integrity. When the managing editor Marcus Brauchli resigned on April 22, 2008, the committee said that News Corporation had violated its agreement by not notifying the committee earlier. However, Brauchli said he believed that new owners should appoint their own editor.<sup id="cite_ref-35">[35]

A 2007 Journal article quoted charges that Murdoch had made and broken similar promises in the past. One large shareholder commented that Murdoch has long "expressed his personal, political and business biases through his newspapers and television stations". Former Times assistant editor Fred Emery remembers an incident when "Mr. Murdoch called him into his office in March 1982 and said he was considering firing Times editor Harold Evans. Mr. Emery says he reminded Mr. Murdoch of his promise that editors couldn't be fired without the independent directors' approval.'God, you don't take all that seriously, do you?' Mr. Murdoch answered, according to Mr. Emery." Murdoch eventually forced out Evans.<sup id="cite_ref-36">[36]

In 2011, The Guardian found evidence that the Journal had artificially inflated its European sales numbers, by paying Executive Learning Partnership for purchasing 16% of European sales. These inflated sales numbers then enabled the Journal to charge similarly inflated advertising rates, as the advertisers would think that they reached more readers than they actually did. In addition, the Journal agreed to run "articles" featuring Executive Learning Partnership, presented as news, but effectively advertising.<sup id="cite_ref-guardian_circulation_37-0">[37]  The case came to light after a Belgian Wall Street Journal employee, Gert Van Mol, informed Dow Jones CEO Les Hintonabout the questionable practice.<sup id="cite_ref-The_Hollywood_Reporter_38-0">[38]  As a result, the then Wall Street Journal Europe CEO and Publisher Andrew Langhoff was fired after it was found out he personally pressured journalists into covering one of the newspaper's business partners involved in the issue.<sup id="cite_ref-Pointer._39-0">[39] <sup id="cite_ref-WSJ_Online_40-0">[40]  Since September 2011, all the online articles that resulted from the ethical wrongdoing carry a Wall Street Journal disclaimer informing the readers about the circumstances in which they were created.

The Journal, along with its parent Dow Jones & Company, was among the businesses News Corporation spun off in 2013 as the new News Corp. In November 2016, in an effort to cut costs, the Journal's editor-in-chief, Gerard Baker, announced that layoffs and consolidation to its sections would take place. In the memo, the new format for the newspaper will have a "Business & Finance" section that will combine its current "Business & Tech" and "Money & Investing" sections. It will also include a new "Life & Arts" section that will combine its current "Personal Journal" and "Arena" sections. In addition, the current "Greater New York" coverage will be reduced and will move into the main section of paper.<sup id="cite_ref-41">[41]

Recent Milestones

 * WSJ Live became available on mobile devices in September 2011.<sup id="cite_ref-42">[42]
 * WSJ Weekend, the weekend newspaper, expanded September 2010, with two new sections: "Off Duty" and "Review".
 * "Greater New York", a stand-alone, full color section dedicated to the New York metro area, launched April 2010.<sup id="cite_ref-43">[43] <sup id="cite_ref-44">[44]
 * The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco Bay Area Edition, which focuses on local news and events, launched on November 5, 2009, appearing locally each Thursday in the print Journal and every day on online at WSJ.com/SF.
 * WSJ Weekend, formerly called Saturday's Weekend Edition: September 2005.
 * Launch of Today's Journal, which included both the addition of Personal Journal and color capacity to the Journal: April 2002.
 * Launch of The Wall Street Journal Sunday: September 12, 1999. A four-page print supplement of original investing news, market reports and personal-finance advice that ran in the business sections of other U.S. newspapers. WSJ Sunday circulation peaked in 2005 with 84 newspapers reaching nearly 11 million homes. The publication ceased on February 7, 2015.<sup id="cite_ref-45">[45]
 * Friday Journal, formerly called First Weekend Journal: March 20, 1998.
 * WSJ.com launched in April 1996.<sup id="cite_ref-46">[46]
 * First three-section Journal: October 1988.
 * First two-section Journal: June 1980.

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