In July 2020, more than two hundred and eighty newsroom employees signed a letter addressed to Almar Latour, the CEO of Dow Jones & Company and the Journal’s publisher, complaining about a “lack of fact-checking and transparency” on the editorial page, which they believed was undercutting the paper’s credibility and making it difficult to recruit and retain journalists of color. During Trump’s presidency, the grumbling grew into a roar. For decades, the Journal newsroom has grumbled about leaps of logic and reckless ideology on the opinion side. It is not where many reporters aspire to land, however, in large part because its reputation is so tainted by incendiary op-eds. The Journal has a distinctly conservative, finance-focused sensibility it also belongs squarely among the New York media elite. Murdoch, who acquired the paper along with Dow Jones in 2007 for five billion dollars, is perhaps the most hated executive in media, yet the Journal has managed to maintain a serious news operation, providing a training ground for excellent journalists for decades. The Journal holds a peculiar position in the American press. “That one, and a couple of the other ones that they’ve done recently, felt like they really went below the belt.” Nevertheless, the Epstein column was hard to take. “We’re all used to and accepting of that wall being there,” a staffer told me. But many reporters at the Journal were upset, having found the piece at once insulting and obstructive Melissa Korn, who covers higher education, tweeted, “Pieces like that make it harder for me to do my job.” The Journal has long been known for its right-wing editorial page, which is kept separate from the newsroom on the organizational chart. Bill Cosby” and that she is a doctor “in the same sense” as Dr. Tucker Carlson devoted time to the op-ed, and the uproar, on his show, observing that Biden has “the same degree as Dr.

Many called it misogynistic and patronizing others identified it as shameless trolling.įor Rupert Murdoch-the owner of the Journal, Fox News, and a phalanx of other media properties-the piece may have represented an appealing opportunity for corporate synergy. Jill Biden’ sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic.” The piece went viral, generating outraged responses from newspaper columnists and social media users around the world. “Any chance you might drop the ‘Dr.’ before your name? ‘Dr. Biden-Jill-kiddo: a bit of advice on what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant matter,” he began. Jill” and accept the “larger thrill” of being First Lady. Written by Joseph Epstein, an eighty-three-year-old former lecturer at Northwestern University, the piece was called “Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an M.D.” In it, Epstein noted that Jill Biden holds a doctorate in education-an EdD-and mocked her for using the honorific that comes with the degree, suggesting that she “forget the small thrill of being Dr. Last December-about a month after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election, and a month before rioters staged an insurrection in support of Donald Trump-a firestorm erupted over an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

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