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Wall Street Journal To Cut Back Print Outside the US (ft.com)
The Wall Street Journal plans to discontinue production of print edition outside the United States in what is the latest testament that popularity of print is waning and it is no longer as lucrative for news outlets to maintain print editions of their journalism. From a Financial Times report: The print edition of the business and finance newspaper, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, will no longer be available in Europe (paywalled; alternative source), according to two people briefed on the plans. Free copies and unprofitable hotel "amenity deals," where hotels buy bulk copies at a discount, are also being scrapped. However, Dow Jones, the News Corp division that owns the Journal, is debating whether to continue mailing copies to subscribers who still want a physical paper. It is pursuing a similar approach in Asia but is in talks with a partner about a print joint venture that would continue distribution in one big market there, according to the people with knowledge of the discussions. In Australia some Wall Street Journal pages are available as an insert in The Australian, another Murdoch-owned paper.
They;re one of the few paywalled publications that actually do quite well online. Also, consider that the WSJ is one thick mofo of a paper, so that's gotta be costly to ship (printing it likely isn't a massive cost per copy for them due to the scale, but shipping has got to be a beast of a cost).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Although not understood well in the U.S., the U.S. news model (prior to Mr. Murdoch coming here) involved trying report the news as objectively and free of a political angle as possible (most U.S. newspapers still do this) - but the editorial section could be as politically slanted as the editors / owners desired. The Wall Street Journal used this model before.
However Mr. Murdoch has a different model and has the political slant as part of the news reporting itself (essentially making the news political propaganda since its not told objectively...MSNBC sort of fills the other side of that although either is like reading a light version of Pravda from back in the day with a political view controling what "news" you see and how its presented). Although pledging to keep the Journal's objectivity in news coverage and keeping the then editor on for 3 years - he left after 4 months.
The Journal still does some good reporting but is a shell of its former self from a impartial news outlet point of view: http://www.independent.co.uk/n...