The New 'WSJ': More Scoops, More Errors

Is Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal sacrificing accuracy for aggressiveness? In the July issue of The Atlantic, Mark Bowden reports that the Journal's correction rate was 25 percent higher in the first quarter of 2008 than in the same period a year earlier. (Murdoch took control of the paper in December 2007.) Officially, notes Bowden, the Journal attributes the increase to the greater number of stories the Journal now runs.

Bowden paints Murdoch as something of an anachronism, an old-line newspaperman whose performance in new media investments has been "mixed at best," and who thinks the Journal can achieve the growth he wants and steal business from The New York Times largely by getting more scoops.

"This means that, at a time when every big newspaper is tinkering with futuristic business models, Murdoch is doing so with both feet planted firmly in the past," he writes. "His strategy for success in 2008 is to behave as though the year is 1908."