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Bigger in circulation than the New York Times and Washington Post put together, so confident of its following that it dispenses with comic strips, advice columnists, crossword puzzles and a sports page, the Journal is almost certainly the only U.S. newspaper that can make or lose fortunes for the people it writes about. A perverse indication of the paper's power came last month, when the Securities and Exchange Commission opened a formal investigation into leaks to stock traders about what items were to appear in its "Heard on the Street" column. The Journal is far from complete: editors can dis miss political developments in a paragraph, and the paper's three daily Page One stories, while almost invariably literate, are not always on top of the news. But the Journal is the only truly international American newspaper, available on the day of publication virtually everywhere in the U.S. and in separate editions in Asia and Western Europe. Its rigorous editing makes it a consistent product for readers.
Under the new team of Associate Publisher Peter Kann, 41, and Managing Editor Norman Pearlstine, 41, the Journal is becoming more inclusive and expanding the editorial staff to about 400. Says Kann: "The interests of American business people are not just in profit and loss but in government, the environment, equality in society, international affairs." The Journal has begun to show more interest in popular culture: last year Arts Editor Manuela Hoelterhoff won a Pulitzer Prize in criticism, and reviews are the centerpiece of a new daily arts and leisure page. The political writing of Washington Bureau Chief Albert Hunt is elegant and informed, and it inspires the same in his 35-member bureau. The paper opens its Op-Ed columns to liberals and gadflies such as Hodding Carter and Alexander Cockburn. As a result, the Journal has won a following even among its ideological opposites. This month a cover story in the partisanly Democratic New Republic praised the Journal as "the definitive newspaper of political economy."
The Journal is deliberately dull to look at, especially on its tombstone-like front page. Photographs appear only in advertisements, and illustration is limited to a handful of line drawings. The emphasis on copy allows the paper to cram its coverage and extensive stock and bond tables into about 22 pages of news space. Says Kann: "We recognize that the paper should not grow too big—it would lose its convenience and utility."