Dealy, Francis X. Jr. The Power and the Money: Inside the Wall Street
Journal. New York: Birch Lane Press, 1993. 374 pages.
For five decades, the Wall Street journal has been one of the most
successful newspapers in the country; today their circulation is over five
million. Francis Dealy, a former vice president of Dow Jones, interviewed
313 people for this book, 153 of whom were either present or former Journal
news staffers. Dealy is not impressed by this success, and notes that the
Journal missed some of the biggest stories of the era: Watergate, Michael
Milken and his junk bonds, and the savings and loan debacle. Moreover,
having stumbled into their niche with the Journal, Dow Jones has been
spectacularly unable to diversify, despite numerous attempts.
The problem, according to Dealy, was the flawed leadership of Warren
Phillips, the retired CEO of Dow Jones, and now it's his successor Peter
Kann. Phillips allowed managing editor Norman Pearlstine to socialize with
Wall Street whiz kids such as Donald Trump and the clients of Michael Milken.
Peter Kann made his wife, Karen Elliott House, a vice president and head of
the Asian and European Wall Street Journals, where she is allowed to play
politics with the staff. Dealy feels that there's a general lack of ethics
and professionalism at the Journal. The owners of the Journal, the Bancroft
family, are content to keep hands off and just soak up their dividend income
(which came to $58 million in 1980 alone).
ISBN 1-55972-118-9
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