Wall Street Journal Editor Admonishes Reporters Over Trump Coverage
- 7 years ago
Wall Street Journal Editor Admonishes Reporters Over Trump Coverage
This is commentary dressed up as news reporting,” Mr. Baker wrote at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday morning to a group of Journal reporters
and editors, in response to a draft of the rally article that was intended for the newspaper’s final edition.
Some staff members expressed similar concerns on Wednesday after Mr. Baker, in a series of blunt late-night emails, criticized
his staff over their coverage of Mr. Trump’s Tuesday rally in Phoenix, describing their reporting as overly opinionated.
The draft also described Mr. Trump’s Phoenix speech as “an off-script return to campaign form,” in which the president “pivoted away from remarks a day earlier in which he had solemnly called for unity.”
That language does not appear in the article’s final version.
Contacted about the emails on Wednesday, a Wall Street Journal spokeswoman wrote in a
statement: “The Wall Street Journal has a clear separation between news and opinion.
Gerard Baker, the editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal, has faced unease
and frustration in his newsroom over his stewardship of the newspaper’s coverage of President Trump, which some journalists there say has lacked toughness and verve.
Several phrases about Mr. Trump that appeared in the draft of the article reviewed by
Mr. Baker were not included in the final version published on The Journal’s website.
This is commentary dressed up as news reporting,” Mr. Baker wrote at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday morning to a group of Journal reporters
and editors, in response to a draft of the rally article that was intended for the newspaper’s final edition.
Some staff members expressed similar concerns on Wednesday after Mr. Baker, in a series of blunt late-night emails, criticized
his staff over their coverage of Mr. Trump’s Tuesday rally in Phoenix, describing their reporting as overly opinionated.
The draft also described Mr. Trump’s Phoenix speech as “an off-script return to campaign form,” in which the president “pivoted away from remarks a day earlier in which he had solemnly called for unity.”
That language does not appear in the article’s final version.
Contacted about the emails on Wednesday, a Wall Street Journal spokeswoman wrote in a
statement: “The Wall Street Journal has a clear separation between news and opinion.
Gerard Baker, the editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal, has faced unease
and frustration in his newsroom over his stewardship of the newspaper’s coverage of President Trump, which some journalists there say has lacked toughness and verve.
Several phrases about Mr. Trump that appeared in the draft of the article reviewed by
Mr. Baker were not included in the final version published on The Journal’s website.