Psst! A little insider info for you: the Wall Street Journal is soon due to get a sports page.

We all thought he’d leave well enough alone. It had been a few weeks since the sale, and we began rationalize ourselves back to peaceful reality. “It’s not as though he can make it any more right-wing, it’s the fucking Wall Street Journal! We’re safe!”

-but no… the Murdoch Machine has greased up WSJ and is applying the Midas Touch. One inch at a time.

Don’t think it stops here. This is the first of The Journal’s many steps down a dark and musky road. Today, sports scores and a move to midtown Manhattan. Tomorrow, shorter words and an otherwise simplified outlook: “Immigrants: BAD!” “Outsourcing: GOOD!” “Math: HARD!” Those interviews with woman executives? Replace ‘em with Page Three Girl. (Be sure to keep the tits above the fold.) Eventually, our once-revered institution of financial facts and absurdist right-wing opinions will degrade into Maxim for Suits.

You’ll know it’s hit rock-bottom when you get a free copy with every lap dance.

Quite frankly, the only benefit of this downward spiral is that Bait’n'Switch will land its own column. (Once we dumb down the humour a bit.)

Yes, we read the paper for the content… but also for the status symbol we tote under our arm or rudely unfold for reading in the crowded morning subway. I don’t need some Starbucks cup to show I’m overpaid: this is old money, bitches. It’s our way of saying, “Khakis? Yeh, I think my kid used to wear those. Before he went to boarding school.”

Like any other business rag, WSJ was designed to appear inaccessible to the Common Man. Another inch in the Us vs Them gap. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?

Ah well. There’s still Financial Times. -and Hustler. I read it for the articles.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 1st, 2008 at 10:49:36 and is filed under Rant. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.