Journal of Wall Street or Pennsylvania Avenue?

PR Week reports that a Project for Excellence in Journalism found that The Wall Street Journal has put less emphasis on its front-page business coverage in favor of political news during the first three months of News Corp.'s ownership, compared to the prior four months. In fact that coverage has nearly quadrupled, from five percent to 18 percent. The study showed that during the same period, the paper decreased its front-page business coverage from 30 percent to 14 percent.

Robert Christie, the VP of communications for Dow Jones & company, explained through an email that this coverage increased because of the unusually long Democratic presidential primary season. But really, hasn't TWSJ become more politicized over the last 25 years? For all the talk about "liberal media bias," I very rarely read a piece on its editorial page that is critical of a Republican point of view. While I recognize the bias among the usual suspects of the left (and believe me, I am neither a fan or an avid reader of those publications either), I know that I can pick them up and OCCASIONALLY get an opposing point of view. Not so with The Journal, which makes this evolution all the more disturbing. I want The Wall Street Journal to give me business news. But that coverage has noticeably diminished. I'm just glad that there is a study that supports my theory of the case. I wouldn't want to be accused of bias myself.