Murdoch interview could have been tougher, admits WSJ special committee

Body that oversees paper’s editorial integrity says it was slow to cover story, but is now making up with ‘aggressive coverage’ The Wall Street Journal “could have done a better job” when it published an interview with proprietor Rupert Murdoch in which he said News Corporation had made only “minor mistakes” in managing the phone-hacking scandal, according to the paper’s special editorial committee. In a report published in the Journal on Monday designed to answer critics of its phone-hacking coverage, the committee – set up when Murdoch bought the paper in 2007 – admitted that its journalists failed to cover the scandal as promptly as its rivals. It also offered criticism of a one-sided interview earlier this month, just 24 hours before News Corp lost two of its most senior newspaper executives, including Les Hinton, who was responsible for the Dow Jones newswires. “[The Journal] could have done a better job with a recent story allowing Mr Murdoch to get his side of the story on the record without tougher questioning,” the report said, adding “We have discussed this with the involved editors.” However, in response to a political request for evidence that the US journalists were not involved in wrongdoing last week, the committee found “nothing to even hint that the sort of misdeeds alleged in London have somehow crept into [WSJ publisher] Dow Jones”. In one critical paragraph of the Journal’s coverage of a scandal that has rocked the company, the UK political establishment and police authorities, the committee wrote: “The Journal was slower than it should have been at the outset to pursue the phone-hacking scandal story, in our opinion, though it is doing much better now with aggressive coverage, fitting placement in the paper, and unflinching headlines.” Last Friday, two days after Rupert Murdoch and his heir apparent James appeared before parliament, the Journal broke the news that the justice department is preparing wide-ranging subpoenas to gather evidence in the phone hacking case. The committee had nothing to say about the WSJ editorial published last week that accused journalists at the Guardian and other news outlets for pushing coverage of the phone-hacking story for “commercial and ideological motives”. Much of the committee’s evidence seems to have been gathered by asking relevant editors and reporters: “Is anybody putting political, ideological or commercial pressure on you to influence your news judgment?” The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is “no”. The report comes after the Journal, edited by Robert Thomson, a former editor of the Times in London, has come under heavy criticism from rival media organisations in recent weeks. New York Times columnist Joe Nocera, who has previously written in support of Murdoch ownership, said : “The Journal was turned into a propaganda vehicle for its owner’s conservative views. That’s half the definition of Fox-ification. The other half is that Murdoch’s media outlets must shill for his business interests. With the News of the World scandal, the Journal has now shown itself willing to do that, too.” The members of the special committee to oversee the editorial integrity of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires include Thomas Bray, former Detroit News opinion editor, Louis Boccardi, former head of AP, Jack Fuller, former president of Tribune Publishing Co, Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab, and Susan Phillips, former dean of the George Washington University business school. They are each paid $100,000 a year to keep an eye on the standards and ethics of the WSJ and Dow Jones Newswires, according to PaidContent. This is understood to be the first report they have published. •

Posted by on July 25, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.