Wall St. Journal Makes Politics Its Business

Slate media columnist Jack Shafer, one of Murdoch's sharpest critics, says his predictions about the Australian-born mogul ruining the Journal's reputation for fairness haven't yet come to pass. "I've seen no real pulling of punches so far, but it is the Murdoch pattern," he says. "I don't think he can resist. He never has."

Changes are hard to detect at the Journal's editorial pages, run by Paul Gigot, who recently had dinner with Murdoch. An owner has every right to influence editorial policy, but the pages seem as pugnaciously conservative as they were before the News Corp. takeover.

Brauchli was not immune to the turmoil that surrounded Murdoch's $5 billion bid for parent company Dow Jones. A former Asia correspondent who joined the Journal as a copy editor in 1984, Brauchli, then deputy managing editor, was offered the editor's job last April -- one day after News Corp. made its formal offer to the Bancroft family, which had controlled the company for nearly 80 years.

"It's possible, I suppose, they could have replaced me," Brauchli says. But Murdoch agreed to retain Brauchli and two other top editors as part of an agreement with the family to safeguard the paper's editorial independence. He invited Brauchli to breakfast soon afterward.

Murdoch addressed the staff's concerns in a meeting with the Washington bureau earlier this month. One staffer asked whether he would wield political influence at the Journal.

"What sells newspapers is news," Murdoch replied, according to participants. He said he was not an ideologue and noted that his newspapers in Britain and Australia had sometimes endorsed Labor Party candidates.

For now, at least, Murdoch seems to have calmed the staff. "At this point, people are both relieved and comfortable," Seib says. Brauchli says Murdoch sets "broad objectives" and lets his editors figure out how to meet them.

But he is acutely aware that Murdoch casts a long shadow. Last month -- utilizing a power that no other newspaper editor wields -- Brauchli changed the makeup of the Dow Jones industrial average, removing Honeywell and Altria and adding Chevron and Bank of America. He later noticed the decision being trashed on Honeywell message boards.

"They were all ranting about how Rupert Murdoch had done this," Brauchli says. "People see the hand of Murdoch whether it's there or not."