The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal
Basic facts
Location:	New York, N.Y.
Type:	News Media
Top official:	Gerard Baker, Editor in Chief
Founder(s):	Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser
Year founded:	1889
Website:	Official website

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is a newspaper and news agency based in New York, N.Y. It was founded in by Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser in 1889. The WSJ is a division of Dow Jones, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. The paper's primary focus is business and economy but also covers other areas of news.^[1]

The WSJ has several media platforms, including a daily print paper (except Sunday), web access, tablet and smartphone app editions. According to the Pew Research Center, the paper has a Monday through Friday circulation of 2.2 million.^[2] The paper also has international editions in Asia, Europe, India, Latin America and Brazil.

Background[edit]

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) was established in 1889, printing its first edition on July 8, 1889.^[3] It was founded by Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser in New York as a way to deliver news to the Wall Street Stock Exchange. Journalists Dow and Jones joined financier Bergstresser in 1889. The three men saw that there was a lacuna in the reporting of financial news and began their news business in the basement of a lower Manhattan candy store.^[4] Below is a brief timeline of the history of the WSJ.

Charles Dow, co-founder of The Wall Street Journal.

Murdoch's purchase of the Dow Jones brought significant change in content to the WSJ. The journal's coverage of international affairs increased by seven percent and business coverage dropped by 16 percent; politics went from nearly five percent to making up for about 18 percent of the newspaper's content.^[1] Another change under Murdoch's leadership was the departure from the signature WSJ front page, which had, since its inception, been columns of print, to the introduction of large photos.^[3] In part, these changes have been credited to Murdoch's desire to rival The New York Times.^[1] In 2010, the WSJ introduced Greater New York, which focused on regional news.^[5]

Murdoch's purchase of the WSJ has garnered some criticism; Joe Nocera of The New York Times wrote in 2011: "The Journal was turned into a propaganda vehicle for its owner’s conservative views."^[7]

In 2011, News Corp was involved a phone hacking inquiry made by the U.S. Department of Justice. The WSJ was the first to report on the story, which involved its parent company. The investigation involved the hacking into the voicemails belonging to September 11 victims by News Corp employees.^[8][6] The WSJ was not involved in the incident, but David Folkenflik of NPR argued, in his book Murdoch's World that editors attempted to impede WSJ coverage of the incident. The WSJ released a press statement stating that they not only covered the story but did so "extensively and aggressively".^[9]

Statistics[edit]

First issue of The Wall Street Journal, July 8, 1889.

Below is a brief overview of the circulation and demographic information for the WSJ.

John Doe investigations[edit]

See also: John Doe investigations related to Scott Walker

Background[edit]

Two John Doe investigations were launched by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm (D) into the activities of staff and associates of Gov. Scott Walker (R). These investigations and the events surrounding them have been described as "the most tumultuous political events in Wisconsin in generations—perhaps in history."^[14]

The first investigation, John Doe I, was launched after Walker aide Darlene Wink noticed funds were missing from the money raised by Operation Freedom, a charitable event for veterans that Walker hosted annually. Walker's office turned the case over to the Milwaukee County DA's office to investigate the missing funds.^[15][14][16]

Over a year passed before the DA's office began investigating the case. By this time, Walker had announced his candidacy for Governor of Wisconsin. On May 5, 2010, Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf asked for the authority to launch a John Doe investigation into the missing funds. He asked for the John Doe on the premise of determining where the funds had originated (i.e., sponsors and donors of the Operation Freedom Event). His request was granted by Judge Neal Nettesheim, who had been appointed the John Doe I judge.^[14][17]

During the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, the John Doe investigation was expanded multiple times to include a Walker donor and members of Walker's county executive staff. The homes, offices and cars of these people were raided and searched, and property, such as computers and cell phones, was seized. The investigation lasted three years and resulted in the convictions of six people, four of whom weren’t related to the missing funds on which the investigation was predicated. The announcement of the charges against the six were made in January 2012, in the midst of an effort to recall Gov. Walker due to his support for Act 10.^[18][19][20]

On June 5, 2012, the recall election attempting to remove Gov. Walker (R) from office was held. Walker won re-election by a wider margin than he had when originally securing the office in 2010. In August 2012, the first John Doe investigation was rolled into a second investigation, John Doe II. This investigation was based on a theory that Governor Walker’s campaign had illegally coordinated with conservative social welfare groups that had engaged in issue advocacy during the recall elections.^[21][22]

The second John Doe investigation spanned multiple counties but was consolidated into one investigation, overseen by an appointed judge and one special prosecutor, Francis Schmitz. During the early morning hours of October 3, 2013, investigators served search warrants on several homes and subpoenaed records from 29 conservative organizations. Several weeks later, on October 25, 2013, three targets of the subpoenas filed a motion to have the subpoenas quashed. The judge overseeing the investigation, Judge Gregory Peterson, granted that motion in January 2014, stating that the prosecutor's theory of criminal activity was not, in fact, criminal under Wisconsin statutes. Although Schmitz filed an appeal to a higher court, the investigation was effectively stalled.^{[23][24][25][26][27]}

A series of lawsuits were filed, one against the John Doe prosecutors for a violation of free speech and several others against the agency that oversees campaign finance law, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB), for trying to enforce unconstitutional regulations of issue advocacy groups, the regulations on which the prosecutor's theory was based.^{[28][29][25][30][31][32]}

The legality of the investigation eventually went before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. On July 16, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in a 4-2 decision to officially halt the John Doe II investigation. The court combined three cases into one, thereby simultaneously ruling on all three. In its ruling, the Supreme Court criticized Schmitz's handling of the case and declared the actions of Chisholm and Schmitz were violations of the targets' First Amendment rights to political speech.^[33][34]

The Supreme Court, in interpreting Wisconsin's campaign finance law, ruled "that the definition of 'political purposes' [...] is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 3 of the Wisconsin Constitution because its language 'is so sweeping that its sanctions may be applied to constitutionally protected conduct which the state is not permitted to regulate.'"^[33]

The court noted that since issue advocacy is "beyond the reach of Ch. 11," Schmitz's theory of illegal coordination between Walker's campaign and social welfare groups was invalid. The court further declared "the special prosecutor's legal theory is unsupported in either reason or law," thereby declaring an official end to the John Doe II investigation.^[33]

Regarding the other two cases addressed in the ruling, the court denied Schmitz's supervisory writ and affirmed Peterson's original motion to quash the subpoenas. It also ruled that the John Doe II judges, Peterson and Barbara Kluka before him, had not "violated a plain legal duty" by allowing the appointment of one judge and one special prosecutor to preside over a multi-county John Doe, though the court did concede "the circumstances surrounding the formation of the John Doe investigation raise serious concerns."^[33]

In its ruling, the court ordered that "everything gathered as potential evidence—including thousands of pages of emails and other documents—be returned and all copies be destroyed." Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel (R) said the court's decision "closes a divisive chapter in Wisconsin history."^[35][36]

WSJ's involvement[edit]

On November 18, 2013, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial on the John Doe investigations, headlined, "Wisconsin Political Speech Raid." Eric O'Keefe, one of the targets of the second John Doe investigation, came forward to tell about what he considered the targeting of conservative organizations by the investigators. O'Keefe's organization, the Wisconsin Club for Growth (WCFG), was one of the targets of the investigation, as well. This story marked the first time any of the targets spoke publicly about the investigations. The Wall Street Journal continued to cover the investigations and published several follow-up pieces.^[37]

Recent news[edit]

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Wall Street Journal. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

See also[edit]

• News Corp
• Dow Jones

External links[edit]

• The Wall Street Journal
• Dow Jones
• News Corp

Footnotes[edit]

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