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There is, in case you haven't noticed it, a global financial crisis going on. So you might expect the largest-selling business newspaper in the Western world, the Wall Street Journal, to be reflecting that sorry state of affairs. Instead, the paper has published some of the most leaden-footed coverage imaginable.
Locked into an archaic design template that reduces cataclysmic news stories to an anodyne mundanity, it sometimes looks and feels as if it is recording the failure of a city council's finances rather than the disintegration of modern capitalism. Both the US and Europe editions seemed extraordinarily slow to catch on to the serious import of the unfolding story. They have also reported it with less verve and imagination than rivals, such as the Financial Times and most of Britain's serious dailies and Sundays.
On Friday, for example, the front-page lead story in the WSJ's US edition was about John McCain's electoral problems in Michigan and relegated the overwhelmingly more important matter of the uncertainty over the credit crunch to a mere single-column story.
But it is the Europe edition — a tabloid, unlike its broadsheet US sister edition — that has failed almost every journalistic test since the crunch assumed crisis proportions. Its Friday edition rightly splashed on the growing concerns by European governments about the flight of deposits from banks that lack state guarantees. But the reporting was lifeless and the headline, “Bypassed lenders grouse about state aid to banks”, was unbelievably dull.
Monday's main story, about Germany's guarantee to bank depositors, told the story, but without adding to what we had been reading, hearing and seeing on websites, radio and television throughout the weekend. Yesterday's splash on the plunging global markets was the natural choice of splash, but neither the presentation nor the content conveyed the dramatic nature of events.
Compared with the FT's much more forceful and dynamic front-page design, it seemed awfully dreary. What one looks for in a publication like the Journal is unimpeachable authority. Its whole raison d'être, after all, is the coverage of the very financial institutions that are at the heart of the biggest financial story in 70 years. Part of the reason may well be embarrassment because the Journal, which is supposed to have its ear to the ground, failed to offer any clue to its readers about impending doom.
In a candid mea culpa, its former chief editor, Marcus Brauchli, has admitted his regret that “we didn't keep a focus” on the growth of derivatives that were at the heart of increasing debt.
Another ex-WSJ reporter, Charlie Gasparino, has said: “We all failed. What we didn't understand was that this was building up. We all bear responsibility to ascertain extent.”
Could that help to explain why the WSJ Europe's coverage has been so far behind the pace, eating into its previous reputation as a supremely credible paper? Then there's the lacklustre presentation to consider. Sobriety is all very well, but it must inspire belief and trust. It must convey to the reader the feeling that the writers are ahead of the game, especially in a world where the straightforward news is available online every minute of the day, not least on the paper's own website.
Multi-bylined news stories conceal the fact that much of the material provides less information than appears on the wires. It may be a sub-editing problem, but that's beside the point. It's no excuse for the insipid copy offered to readers. Put quite simply, the WSJ Europe is beginning to lack clout. It gives the appearance of being a mid-20th century paper that has made no attempt to move into this millennium. Yet it part of the newspaper stable owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
Murdoch, who has breathed life into a succession of titles, not least The Sun and The Times, vowed to put the Journal right when his company acquired it in December last year for £2.5 billion. He promised to reinvigorate the title, specifically pledging to reverse its diminished international strategy by investing heavily in the paper in Europe and Asia.
During negotiations to buy the WSJ's owner, Dow Jones, Murdoch said he was spoiling for a fight with the Financial Times. But his paper, despite several changes, has not landed a punch on the Pink 'Un yet.
Murdoch has put two of his most trusted newspaper lieutenants in charge of the Journal. Former Wapping supremo Les Hinton is chief executive and publisher while ex-Times editor Robert Thomson is editor-in-chief.
I have a high regard for both men, so their failure to transform the WSJ is baffling.
Surely they can see the unacceptability of the staid and stultifying European edition? In fairness, a revamp may be on their agenda. If so, they need to move it up the list as soon as possible. Rightly, and speedily, they improved the WSJ's online service. Its strength in breaking news — news that one can certainly trust — remains unassailable. Its use of graphics is excellent. The website is much better than in the pre-Murdoch era, though the FT's site is a worthy rival.
In the British context, it is also the case that the BBC's business editor, Robert Peston, has become adept at breaking exclusive material during the evenings and weekends while also imbuing it with his own authoritative spin. London-based nationals have moved swiftly to catch up in print but the WSJ Europe doesn't appear to have caught on to Peston's reporting eminence.
Hinton and Thomson need to get to grips with their European paper before it loses its grip on its 81,000-strong audience.
