This morning, Mrs. Vessel and I were talking about today's editorial in the Wall Street Journal defending Rupert Murdoch and Newscorp. It struck both of us that the editorial read like it was written by someone British. I am pretty good at recognizing a brit when I read one, but Mrs. Vessel is fantastic. She has her Ph.D. in modern British History, and has spent lots of time in Britain, and reads these folks constantly. I can't dissect the whole thing, but just read the editorial with a high-class Oxbridge accent--it just roles of the tongue.
It is also worth noting the irony of so much moral outrage devoted to a single media company, when British tabloids have been known for decades for buying scoops and digging up dirt on the famous. Fleet Street in general has long had a well-earned global reputation for the blind-quote, single-sourced story that may or may not be true. The understandable outrage in this case stems from the hacking of a noncelebrity, the murder victim Milly Dowler.
The British politicians now bemoaning media influence over politics are also the same statesmen who have long coveted media support. The idea that the BBC and the Guardian newspaper aren't attempting to influence public affairs, and don't skew their coverage to do so, can't stand a day's scrutiny. The overnight turn toward righteous independence recalls an eternal truth: Never trust a politician.
Do those paragraphs sound like an American to you? Would an American reference Fleet Street without an explanation? So who wrote this unsigned editorial? I ask, because as best I can tell, nobody on the WSJ editorial board is British.
The WSJ editorial Board is here.
Paul A. Gigot Editor, Editorial Page, The Wall Street Journal
Daniel Henninger Deputy Editor, Editorial Page
Robert L. Bartley In Memoriam
Bret Stephens Deputy Editor, Editorial Page
James Freeman Assistant Editor, Editorial Page
Of those guys (all guys, what a shock) only one seems to have ties to Britain--Bret Stephens
Bret Stephens
Deputy editor, editorial page, The Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Stephens writes the Journal's "Global View" column on foreign affairs, which runs every Tuesday in the U.S. and is also published in the European and Asian editions of the paper. He is a deputy editorial page editor, responsible for the editorial pages of the Asian and European editions of the paper, the columnists on foreign affairs, and the Far Eastern Economic Review. He previously worked for the paper as an op-ed editor in New York and as an editorial writer in Brussels for The Wall Street Journal Europe.
From March 2002 to October 2004 Mr. Stephens was editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, a position he assumed at age 28. At the Post, he was responsible for the paper's news and editorial divisions. He also wrote a weekly column.
In 2004, Mr. Stephens was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, where he is also a media fellow.
Raised in Mexico City and educated at The University of Chicago and the London School of Economics, Mr. Stephens is married and has three children.
Stephens might have picked up a British style of writing at the LSE, but he was just as likely to pick up the impenetrable, crappola, jargon filled style of writing that dominates the University of Chicago.
Or...someone in Britain (Where Murdoch is running damage control) wrote this editorial and sent it over to the WSJ to be printed. So much for editorial independence at the WSJ. Is it a coincidence that Fox News and other Newscorps papers are running similar editorials, commentaries, and such?
So...Just askin--who wrote this editorial?
12:29 PM PT: Pico suggests that the writing sounds like Daniel Heninger. After reading some of Heninger's stuff, the tone seems to match. This gem, in particular, struck me as similarly superior and stupid.
"Ronald Reagan was not a nag. Reagan offered the politics of possibility, not the politics of impending doom."
So, there goes my little conspiracy theory.