The Wall Street Journal (Opinion)

U.S. right-of-center / pro-business conservative

Background

The Wall Street Journal was founded in 1889 by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser as a financial news publication. News Corp, run by Rupert Murdoch, acquired Dow Jones & Company (the Journal's publisher) in 2007, ending decades of Bancroft family ownership and raising concerns at the time about editorial independence. The opinion section operates under a separate editorial board from the newsroom, long overseen by editor Paul Gigot, and has historically championed supply-side economics, free trade, deregulation, and a hawkish foreign policy stance. It has a long history of friction with the Journal's own news division, which it does not direct and which maintains separate reporting standards. During Trump's second term, the editorial board has broken sharply with the administration over tariffs, repeatedly calling them economically and politically self-defeating, while generally backing the administration's tax and deregulatory agenda. The board has also criticized specific moves like a proposed "tariff dividend" plan and intervention in antitrust and economic matters. It remains one of the most influential conservative editorial voices in U.S. media, widely read by business and political elites.

Sources

1. The Wall Street Journal (Wikipedia)
2. Editorial board at The Wall Street Journal (Wikipedia)
3. Wall Street Journal - Editorial Media Bias (AllSides)
4. Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Criticizes Trump's 'Self-Defeating' Tariff 'Obsession'
5. WSJ editorial board criticizes Donald Trump over reaction to Supreme Court tariff ruling
6. Wall Street Journal editorial board denounces 'preposterous' Trump dividend plan

Profile compiled 2026-10-02; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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