I just encountered a weird hit-piece from the WSJ about the State of the Union address. I know they’re owned by Murdoch, but I expect them to be a bit more subtle than simply making up things about Obama out of whole cloth. That’s the sort of thing I expect from Fox, not the WSJ. The article doesn’t even make an attempt to criticize policy, it’s a pure ad-hominem, attacking the man rather than his actions or positions.
Yeah. It’s not “becoming” though. They became just a slightly more literate orifice of the same beast some time ago.
I have no doubt that the backers of Fox News realize that Fox itself has become rather poisoned these days. And the backers are smart enough to understand that they need to back a few different horses now. They’ll keep control of Fox, it has a lot of ignorant ditto-head followers. The next headspace would then be the bastions of other rich white men. The WSJ was never a crowd of geniuses. So excelsior and all that.
Edit: I understand that Murdoch owns Fox. But he has wealthy friends. And they need another mouthpiece that isn’t tainted with Rove.
You must not get the WSJ. Rove’s had his own column for at least a year.
Okay, I do not get the WSJ. But am I not correct that lately he’s been tearing down some of the party planks? I was watching CNN today and it seems like he’s persona non-grata these days.
I always assumed that well off people are smarter than your average bear, so it should be harder to outright lie to them.
Anecdotaly, I know a lot of people who “left” WSJ over past 5 years or so. They went to Forbes, couple other places.
Ha.
There are certainly wealthy people who are intelligent, but even then, like the rest of us, they often wear very heavy blinders, and their intelligence is sometimes very narrowly focused.
Moreover some significant percentage of the wealthy (for any definition of “wealthy” you like) come from wealthy families; they’ve inherited wealth and opportunity and have no special claims on intelligence.
Next, some of these people are no doubt aware they are being lied to; indeed they are repeating those lies knowingly; but they are part of the faction that is profiting from the lies, so naturally they are participating.
Finally, the WSJ is not necessarily the newspaper of the wealthy; like Barrons, Fortune, Money, and most other such mass-market publications which are about money and wealth, to some extent it’s marketed for the wannabes.
WSJ has been a middlebrow right wing pit for years.
The WSJ editorial page has been full of right wing cranks for a long time. The newsroom used to be top notch, they’ve been steadily slipping since the Murdoch takeover.
To be fair, just about every paper has slipped in that timeframe. Let me rephrase that, every paper has slipped. The editorial bit is right on tho.
Pretty much. The cool-aid brigade moved into the newsroom shortly after the takeover, and it’s been getting worse ever since.
Enh, post takeover the newsroom was OK for long enough to lull folks onto a false sense if complacency. Then the headlines started getting wacky but the articles were ok. Now it’s all just another Murdoch rag. :(
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair