Wall Street Journal Still Makes Waves Among Business Readers Worldwide

For more than 115 years the Wall Street Journal provide news and stories on Financial and Business sectors around the world. We take a look at their past on some of the most important turning points on their history.

The Wall Street Journal was first published in 1882 in New York; apart from the American issue which published daily, they also maintain a European and Asian version; all issues are covering Business, Financial news locally and around the world. Currently it is among the top five best selling newspapers in North America. It used to be the best selling newspaper until 2003 where they were overtaken by USA Today.

In the beginning, the newspaper was first published directly by Dow Jones and Company; later in 1902, Clarence Barron took over and transformed the paper from a mere 7,000 issues to a daily circulation of more than 50,000 copies. The paper was later ran by the Woodworth family until the late 30’s where management was taken by Bernard Kilgore; in the beginning of 1941 the Wall Street Journal took the shape that carries more or less at present. The new shape, together with the excellent editorial brought circulation to 1,1 million copies in 1967.

In 1996 the newspaper went online and maintains a website with content that can be accessed for free (Acrobat editions of the newspaper); there is also an online subscription option for an annual fee of around $120. The online edition of the paper maintains the largest paid subscriber base to its online edition option. It is still possible to book a Wall Street Journal subscription for the printed version online. The newspaper began to utilize advertising space offline for the first time in 2006.

During the Reagan administration, the newspaper's editorial page was particularly influential as the leading voice for supply-side economics. Under the editorship of Robert Bartley, it expounded at length on such economic concepts such as the Laffer curve and how a decrease in certain marginal tax rates and the capital gains tax can increase overall tax revenue by generating more economic activity.

In the economic argument of exchange rate regimes (one of the most divisive issues among economists), the Journal has a tendency to support fixed exchange rates over floating exchange rates in spite of its support for the free market in other respects. For example, the Journal was a major supporter of the Chinese yuan's peg to the dollar, and strongly disagreed with American politicians who were criticizing the Chinese government about the peg. It opposed the moves by China to let the yuan gradually float, arguing that the fixed rate benefited both the United States and China.
Since 1980, the paper is 96 pages long; the regular sections include:

• Daily corporate, political and economic news; marketplace, covering health technology, media as well as marketing industries

• Daily money and investments section for personal investments, cultural pursuits and careers; also daily coverage and analysis of international financial markets

• The Weekend edition which is published on Fridays and explores the interests of mainly business readers and include sections on travel, real estate and sports

In 2005 the paper reported that the readership profile of their readers is about 60 percent top managers age 55 with a net household of $2.1m, with an income of around $191K. The website serves 5 million users every month (US only); they are mostly male, Caucasian between the ages of 35 and 55, with no kids, college graduates with an annual income in the range $60,000 - $100,000.

Wall Street Journal won many Pulitzer prizes; some of the newspaper stories and reporting made a significant impact worldwide. Examples are the Insider trading, the Nabisco buyout, AIDS treatment, Enron collapse and the 9/11 terrorist attack.