Wall Street Journal, The

U.S. daily national newspaper, the most influential American business-oriented paper and one of the most respected dailies in the world.

Founded in 1889 by Charles H. Dow, founder of Dow Jones & Co., it quickly won success. Beginning in the Great Depression, the Wall Street Journal began to feature more articles, reviews, and opinion on other subjects. Published in New York City and with regional editions printed across the country, it has one of the highest daily circulations of any U.S. newspaper. It is also published in Asian, European, and other special editions.

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▪ American newspaper

      daily business and financial newspaper edited in New York City and sold throughout the United States. Other daily editions include The Asian Wall Street Journal, edited in Hong Kong, and The Wall Street Journal Europe, edited in Brussels.

      The Wall Street Journal was founded by Charles H. Dow (Dow, Charles Henry), of Dow Jones & Company, primarily to cover business and financial news. The first issue was published on July 8, 1889. The newspaper's accuracy and the breadth and detail of its coverage won it respect and success from the start. From its founding until early in the Great Depression, the Journal rarely ventured beyond business and economic news. Then, however, it began to carry occasional feature articles on other subjects. After World War II this trend increased, and by the 1960s the Journal regularly carried two feature articles on page one that only occasionally addressed business subjects, and then in a whimsical or amusing way.

      Although perceived as favouring the interests of businesses, the Journal's opinion and editorial pages reflect a wide range of highly informed business, political, and economic opinion; readers' letters; and reviews of and comments on the arts. The long-established structure of the Journal includes complete tables reporting all financial and stock market activity for the preceding day as well as thorough reports and analyses of current business topics. Published Monday through Friday, the national, Asian, and European editions of the Journal had a combined circulation of more than two million at the turn of the 21st century. The U.S. Journal added a weekend edition in 2005. The Journal's sister publications have included Barron's, the Far Eastern Economic Review, and SmartMoney. By 2007 the Journal had received more than 30 Pulitzer Prizes (Pulitzer Prize) for its coverage of such events as the September 11 attacks (2001) and American corporate scandals (2003).

      In 2007 it was announced that Rupert Murdoch (Murdoch, Rupert)'s News Corporation was acquiring Dow Jones & Company, publisher of the Journal, for $5 billion.

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