Thanks, Bob.
I simply do not understand though how one can make such a blanket statement on the content of the WSJ editorial page.
It's a fairly common judgment about it. There are two segments to it. One is the editorials written by the editorial staff. Those are intensely ideological and quite consistently so. They make no bones about it; nor have they since Gigot's predecessor was put in charge of the editorial staff. There's a book, quite good, about the WSJ, in which the author notes that tight ties between the editorial board and DePauw University in Indiana (my wife graduated from there). The editor went there and, for a while, most of the new appointments to the board were DePauw graduates. A little like Hoover's hiring of Catholic college graduates for the FBI, this was a way to reinforce the ideological consistency/rigidity.
The second are the various op ed writers. Those from the WSJ staff pretty much stick with the party line. But they do have guest op ed writers and while rarely anything but WSJ brand conservatives, they are a few outside the fellowship. Thomas Franks is one.
The larger point though is that one doesn't have to read the WSJ editorial page to get a fiscally conservative point of view. You get that argued much better, more detail and better written, at either The Financial Times or The Economist. And it's, gratefully, not so predictable.
But, as I recall, you said you read non-conservative sources to see how "the enemy" thinks. Was that correct? |
