Commentary — August 1, 2007, 3:20 pm

Archive Highlights: The Wall Street Journal

“Exclusive: Rupert Murdoch Speaks,” Time, July 28, 2007:

The owner-in-waiting will eventually want to see some [changes], starting on Page One. He has little taste for the quirky “A-head” stories that run in the center columns. “To have these esoteric, well-written stories on Page One every day is great,” he says, in a tone of voice that implies it’s not so great. “But I still think you want some hard news. I’d try to keep many more of them for the weekend. I’m sick of putting the Journal aside because I don’t have time to get through these stories.”

wsj

John Brooks, “The Wall Street Journal Woos the Eggheads,” March 1959:

A Journal leader is really a small magazine article rather than a news story. It may run to magazine-article length–two thousand words or more–and it always tries to attain magazine-article depth and thoroughness. Its subject is usually something of fairly crucial interest to businessmen, but at times, it may take up matters primarily for their intrinsic interest. For example, last summer the Journal ran a leader that presented the most complete and lucid account printed anywhere of Louis Wolfson’s complicated dealings in American Motors stock. In the course of one week last fall, there were leaders on new wrinkles in frozen-food packaging; a pick-up in automobile sales; the promising new drugs for heart disease; the United Auto Workers’ election-campaign tactics; the situation in commercial production of atomic power plants; the status of the Gomulka government in Poland; the appalling railroad-car shortage that would develop in case of war; the financial plight of opera companies; and the decline of the hula-hoop fad, Packed with information that had been closely checked and intelligently collated, such articles, while of bread-and-butter interest to a few readers, have a special appeal for amateur sociologists, trend-spotters, people in search of topics for cocktail conversation, and those who take an innocent delight in knowing what’s going on around them.

“The Luckiest $7 I Ever Spent” (Advertisement), July 1963:

luckiestsevendollars

Harper’s Index, June 2002:

Number of artists employed full-time by the Wall Street Journal to convert photographs into faux engravings : 5

Share
Single Page

More from Harper’s Magazine:

Harper's Finest May 21, 2013, 3:09 pm

Wil S. Hylton’s “Broken Heartland” (2012)

The looming collapse of agriculture on the Great Plains

Précis May 20, 2013, 9:00 am

Dan Baum Argues That Efforts to Ban the AR-15 are Hopeless

“The smart question is not ‘How we can ban more guns?’ but ‘How can we live more safely among the millions of guns already floating around?’ ”

Harper's Finest May 20, 2013, 9:00 am

Gary Greenberg’s “Manufacturing Depression” (2007)

“This is the heart of the magic factory, the place where medicine is infused with the miracles of science.”

Get access to 163 years of
Harper’s for only $19.97

United States Canada

CATEGORIES

THE CURRENT ISSUE

June 2013

How to Make Your Own AR-15

= Subscribers only.
Sign in here.
Subscribe here.

Long Division

= Subscribers only.
Sign in here.
Subscribe here.

The Separating Sickness

= Subscribers only.
Sign in here.
Subscribe here.

view Table Content

FEATURED ON HARPERS.ORG

[Editor's Note]
Why the AR-15 rifle is here to stay,
the conspiracy theories of Room 237,
and more
[Perspective]
The firearm as emblem of personal sovereignty
“Let’s review our recent national paroxysm about guns, shall we?”
Illustration by Jeremy Traum
[Report]
How to Make Your Own AR-15

= Subscribers only.
Sign in here.
Subscribe here.

“Even if federal gun-control advocates got everything they wanted, they couldn’t prevent America’s most popular rifle from being made, sold, and used. Understanding why this is true requires an examination of how the firearm is made.”
Illustration by Jeremy Traum
[Harper's Finest]
Wherein the author enrolls in a clinical drug trial
“This is the heart of the magic factory, the place where medicine is infused with the miracles of science.”
Illustration by Ernst Kreidolf
[Report]
Broken Heartland

= Subscribers only.
Sign in here.
Subscribe here.

“During the early 1990s, farmers throughout the Great Plains began to notice a decline in their wells. Irrigation systems from the Dakotas to Texas dipped, and, in some places, have been abandoned entirely.”
Illustration (detail) by Jeffery Smith

Ratio of military recruiters to college counselors at East Los Angeles’s Roosevelt High School:

5:1

The majority of young Swedish women are attracted to both men and women.

“My body was quite happy,” said ISS mission commander Chris Hadfield. “I learned to talk with a weightless tongue.”

Subscribe to the Weekly Review newsletter. Don’t worry, we won’t sell your email address!

HARPER’S FINEST

Article — From the May 2007 issue

Manufacturing Depression

By

“This is the heart of the magic factory, the place where medicine is infused with the miracles of science, and I’ve come to see how it’s done.”

Subscribe Today