Anger in the Ranks Over 'WSJ' Editor's Silence

Is Marcus Brauchli destined to go down in history as the Colin Powell of The Wall Street Journal?

As George W. Bush's first Secretary of State, Powell tried to have a moderating influence on Bush Administration policy but is remembered primarily for lending his credibility to hyped-up Iraq intelligence, and for holding his tongue long after his bosses showed him the door.

Now David Carr suggests Brauchli is coming to be viewed similarly by Journal staffers who accuse him of getting bulldozed by Rupert Murdoch, and then taking the News Corp. chief's hush money.

Carr reports that Brauchli's former underlings are mad at him, and at former Dow Jones general counsel Stuart Karle, for signing non-disclosure agreements that prevent them from speaking their minds about the changes at the Journal. "Here you have two people who are icons of freedom of expression, and they can't talk because of NDA's they signed," says one reporter. "It was disgusting."

At a send-off for Karle last week, another reporter actually confronted Brauchli and his predecessor, Paul Steiger, and chastised them about rolling over for Murdoch.

Then again, Brauchli's obligation to speak out is personal, not contractual -- unlike the special committee created to safeguard the Journal's editorial independence, which, as I've noted, has more than ample grounds for getting involved.

The Times also looks today at Robert Thomson, the Journal's publisher, who can now consolidate his control of the paper's editorial operations with Brauchli out of the way. One particular quote from Thomson stands out for its combative and partisan tone: "It is highly amusing that left-wing media commentators who tend to regard all businesspeople as criminals or reprobates are worried about us alienating business readers."

That's the kind of sentiment you hear a lot on Fox Business, or on the Journal's editorial page, or emanating from Roger Ailes. Now you're hearing it from someone running the news operation of the country's second-biggest paper.

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