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Why I plan not to renew my subscription
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Why, Rupert Murdoch, Why?

John Gruber calls out the Wall Street Journal’s declining quality: An Aug 1 front-page article drives home my increasing gripes with the WSJ with a front-page article “addressing the issue of whether Barack Obama is ‘too physically fit’ to be elected president”.

• Read the “article” here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121755336096303089.html
• Gruber’s source

Ok, that’s it. I’m done.

For months I’ve felt this welling up of frustration every time I open the morning paper. Sometimes I just let it sit in the driveway all day. I no longer feel the smug satisfaction that I used to feel reading the best newspaper available.

It seems to me that Wall Street Journal front pages are increasingly given over to eye-catching illustrations and info-graphics. The format and content of the articles seem now to be designed to appeal to “the masses”, or the “more sophisticated consumer”. They even changed the size of the paper, so it’s no longer the trademark WSJ wide-format. It fits on the newsstand next to the New York Times and the LA Times and the Austin American Statesman, and it still jumps out at you. It feels “mainstream”, and appealing in a mass-market sort of way.

But I subscribed to the Wall Street Journal precisely because it wasn’t appealing. I wanted to read the news that the economic elite reads; I wanted information that the common citizen wasn’t interested in.

I’m not interested in Barak Obama’s waist size, or what John McCain is mad at him about today, or Heath Ledger’s fantastic performance as The Joker – I can get all that “news” from our local rag. I’m not interested in op-ed articles masquerading as reporting – I can get that from Fox News and CNN. I’m interested in the impact of Congress’ offshore drilling policies on oil futures, and who just joined whose board of directors, and what are Starbucks’ plans to compete with McDonalds.

It’s a sad day.

The Wall Street Journal no longer offers anything of greater value than I can get from my local rag. Oh where, oh where will I turn?