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Since New York is still the cultural capital of the world, the Times's critics understandably exert formidable power. Theater Critic Clive Barnes can easily kill a Broadway play with a negative notice, which may be the reason why many readers find his prolix reviews generally far too kind. Ada Louise Huxtable, now part of the nine-member editorial board, is probably the most influential commentator on architecture in the country. The Times has also broadened its cultural reviews to include regular coverage of rock and other outgrowths of the counterculture that would not have made its pages a few years back.
The last decade has not all been triumph at the Times. It was badly outdistanced by the Washington Post on Watergate. Not until the Times in 1972 hired Seymour Hersh, who first exposed the My Lai massacre, did its Washington bureau do much in the way of investigative reporting. Shrinking profits have twice prompted Publisher Arthur Ochs ("Punch") Sulzberger to send somber Yuletide messages to employees warning of economies ahead. Its editorial staff has been trimmed slightly.
These problems have not substantially affected the finished product. The Times is still the nation's single most informative paper, and it is commendably blessed with a passion for accuracy in things both great and small. If gasoline is abbreviated as "gas" in headlines, the word is decorously draped with quotation marks.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Morning (circ. 1,300,000).
In 1939 the Journal submitted to the Pulitzer Prize board a series attacking antiquated building codes. The material was returned, along with the comment that "trade papers are not eligible for consideration." The Journal has outgrown its "trade" classification (it finally won a Pulitzer in 1947), though it is obviously a specialty paper for the business and economic community. It has also emerged as one of the most distinctive voices in U.S. daily journalism. The Journal's editorial page is the country's most widely quoted source of conservative opinion. Its front page has a capacity for surprise unmatched by any other paper. News and financial items are ticked off with smart, bulletin-like precision. These columns are bracketed by serious financial comment, offbeat personality profiles and flights of pop sociology. In a given week, the Journal's left-hand column will take up subjects as diverse as the trend toward naming rival products in advertising, and the not-quite-emerging nation of Afghanistan (Headline: DO THE RUSSIANS COVET AFGHANISTAN? IF SO, IT'S HARD TO FIGURE WHY).
At a time when any self-respecting paper must do aggressive investigative reporting, the Journal ranks high. Jerry Landauer scooped the country last August with the story that Spiro Agnew was under criminal investigation. Stanley Penn has produced major exclusives on the tangled finances of Robert Vesco and Howard Hughes.