Ripped from the Headlines (Conflict)
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
At The Wall Street Journal, a conflict arose between the opinion section and the newsroom earlier this year. This happened as a result of disparity in views between the two departments of the company. The newsroom accused the opinion side of publishing articles bearing views that were contradictory to those of The Wall Street Journal. The news staff members wrote a letter to the publisher, accusing the opinion desk of being ambiguous and not being keen on facts. In this letter, they pointed out articles from the opinion section that had errors. It also detailed how one of the contributors had endangered the life of a Journal’s journalist through a tweet. This tweet linked the journalist to the Muslim Brotherhood.
RESPONSE FROM THE BOARD
The editorial board did not respond to the newsroom’s grievances directly. Instead, it wrote a note to the readers of the paper detailing that they would not respond to letter writers and signers. It claimed that the letter signers’ anxiety were not its responsibility and would hence continue publishing contributors’ opinions despite the unrest.
OBSERVATIONS
The conflict arose due to the publication of contrary opinions of the two departments. Tweeting of unverified information also brought conflict and even endangered the life of the said journalist.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To address this conflict, every article that is to be published needs to be thoroughly checked by both departments to endure that they are satisfactory and that only verifiable facts are published. The editorial board should also introduce a conflict resolution committee that will mediate the two departments by solving all the issues at hand.
CONFLICT BETWEEN THE NEWS STAFF AND THE OPINION SECTION AT WALL STREET JOURNAL
At Dow Jones & Company’s newspaper section(The Wall Street Journal), a conflict arose in June this year, as reported in The New York Times. According to The New York Times, the conflict had been boiling up for more than a month before leaking into the public.
A few days prior, about 300 news staff of the Journal sent a letter to Almar Latour, its publisher, accusing the opinions section of lack of transparency and not being thorough with facts. This letter highlighted articles that the opinion section had published contrary to the newsroom. Such articles include one claiming that there is no second wave of coronavirus by Vice president Mike Pence which was posted on 16th June this year. This article contradicted what the newsroom had reported more than a week earlier.
In the letter, they claimed that the opinion section always publishes news contrary to Wall Street Journal reporting. They also said that a contributor to the opinion section, Andy Ngo, endangered the life of one of the Journal’s Journalists by tweeting a false claim that the journalist was linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Even though the tweet was deleted, the journalist’s life was put in danger as she frequently lives in Saudi Arabia, where Muslim brotherhood is regarded as an enemy. According to the letter, the opinion section had agreed not to use the contributor’s opinion. However, a few months later, his opinions were still being published.
The Journal’s publisher Dow Jones did not respond in any way to the grievances. The editorial board also did not respond to the letter directly. Instead, it wrote a note to the readers of the paper stating that it would not respond to the signers of the letter. It also highlighted that the anxiety of the signers of the letter was none of its concern. The board clearly stated that it would keep on publishing all of their contributors’ opinions.
References
Edmund Lee, 24th July 2020. At Wall Street Journal, News Staff and Opinion Side Clash. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/business/media/wall-street-journal-news-opinion-clash-letter.html