Data: WSJ's "News Alert" Spam Out of Control Since News Corp Acquisition

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10 points·robertjmoore··6 comments

Some hard data on the increased frequency of ad-supported "WSJ News Alert" e-mails since the sale of Dow Jones to News Corp. Are paying subscribers being sold out for e-mail ad inventory?

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Can we please stop pretending that the new WSJ bears any resemblance to the old one?

The top WSJ editor already "resigned" shortly after the acquisition and the shift in content is completely unmistakable. http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN2245129320080423

Why do we still give so much weight to the brand even when we know that the management is completely new?

Because almost all the reporters and lower level editors remain the same and they're the ones with the greatest impact on the product?

Depends what sort of impact we are talking about. Lower level staff cannot make decisions on what stories to follow, where and when the stories are run and under which headlines, or the general editorial bent of the paper. The tone and the quality of the copy writing at WSJ remains impeccable, the content, not so much.

Tell that to Pravda.

Let's not confuse the editorial page with the news reporting. The WSJ is a remarkable paper, one of the best in the world, when it comes to news reporting. This has not changed with the new ownership. The op-ed page has a well-developed political worldview that you may not agree with, but HN is not the forum for political discussions. There are so many sites for that already. Political discussion is the ultimate eternal September, and HN is so good and useful right now. It would be a shame if it were ruined by politics.

It's not spam if you're paying for the privilege.

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