Analysis: The Wall Street Journal's editorial page takes on Trump
The big media story of the year kicked off with a vestigial piece of content: the unsigned newspaper editorial.
Nobody would have noticed a Los Angeles Times endorsement of Kamala Harris — until Max Tani revealed that its owner had spiked it. Ditto the Washington Post. Their rush decisions, much more than the substance of those choices, are emblematic of a generation of power brokers unused to politics. It's contagious. The powerful executives gathered in Davos last week would literally run away when you asked them about the president's new cryptocurrency, $TRUMP.
Those would-be moguls could take a lesson from a real one: Rupert Murdoch.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page is saying what even the business leaders excited by Donald Trump's economic promise haven't — that they are worried about the rule of law and the Trump family money chase. The Jan. 6 pardons, the Journal wrote, were 'a stain.' The TikTok extension was 'illegal.' The 'crypto caper' was the 'howling' product of 'cowed' advisers.
Newspapers will probably stop running editorials. Publishing and journalism don't need to be entwined in power politics.
But if you want to be a mogul, as the Murdochs have learned over the decades, you can't make yourself quite that easy to bully.
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