En defensa del Journal de Kilgore

Dean Starkman publica en The Audit de la Columbia Journalism Review un durísimo alegato a favor del estilo periodístico de Wall Street Journal puesto en marcha en los años 40 por Barney Kilgore y que ha hecho que el Journal sea hoy el diario de referencia que es: historias simples pero no simplistas; útil e interesante no sólo para los hombres de negocios sino para cualquier persona inteligente; que informara sobre cómo ganarse la vida y gastar dinero; con una prosa pulida al detalle y sin miedo a los artículos largos; y sobre todo, que contara las cosas de manera diferente, con modestia y sin arrogancia. Un nuevo periodismo que hizo escuela, no sólo en el propio Journal sino entre la competencia. La antítesis de lo que - al parecer - pretende Murdoch.

"It’s not hard to see what Murdoch and Thomson have in mind for the new Journal. A blizzard of shorter stories that don’t jump and that take no more than a day to report, with a heavy emphasis on scoops, adds up to…"

"(...) what’s lost in this scenario is what makes American newspapers distinct from and superior to their Anglo-Australian counterparts: fully developed features, investigations, and just plain original reporting—that is reporting that takes longer than a day. "

"Look, deals are fine, great even. But it is/was the genius of the Journal—what made it different and better—that it treated deals and all routine business news as a given on its way to offering much more.

This was the insight of Barney Kilgore, the post-World War II editor and executive who created the modern Journal: The paper would pay business-press readers the compliment of believing that if they had a minute, they might also be interested in the struggles of an inner-city honors student; how the tobacco industry used ammonia to boost cigarettes’ impact; or whether Bobby Thomson was stealing signs when he hit the most celebrated homerun in baseball history.

The editorial changes now under way represent the ascendance of a cramped, deal-centric vision of a business newspaper over an expansive one."

Y no se pierdan las "perlas" dedicadas al Financial Times :

These stories aren’t about deals, typically.

They do more than report what some institution did yesterday.

They don’t offer warmed-over political analysis you can get anywhere.

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