It's Alive! 'WSJ' Independence Panel Speaks Out

Finally, an answer: Yes, the special committee created to safeguard The Wall Street Journal's editorial independence from News Corp. is peeved about how it all went down.

Tom Bray, the committee's chairman, just issued a statement, via the Journal's website, saying its members should have been notified before Marcus Brauchli was asked to resign as managing editor, not afterwards.

"[L]earning of the Brauchli matter after the fact failed to meet the letter and the spirit of the agreement," Bray writes. However, he adds, "The Committee met subsequently and decided that there was no practical way to 'unresign' Brauchli and start the process over." So a statement of disapproval is pretty much where all this ends.

The statement doesn't directly touch on the concept of constructive termination, which, as I've argued, is what News Corp.'s handling of Brauchli amounts to.