Wall Street Journal reporters chided by editor for ‘selective criticism’ of Trump

Reporters at The Wall Street Journal were reportedly criticized for their coverage of President Trump’s Tuesday rally by a top editor at the outlet who asked staff to “stick to reporting” and avoid “selective criticism.”

“Sorry. This is commentary dressed up as news reporting,” editor-in-chief Gerard Baker wrote in an early Wednesday morning email to a group of Wall Street Journal editors and reporters after reading a draft of a story on Trump’s Phoenix rally. 

In a follow-up email, Baker asked, “Could we please just stick to reporting what he said rather than packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism?”

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The emails were reviewed by The New York Times.

In comparing the draft of the story sent to Baker and the final version that was published in the paper Wednesday, the Times found several phrases pertaining to Trump were removed.

For example, the draft read that the Charlottesville protests were “reshaping” Trump’s presidency. That mention was removed in the published version.

The draft also characterized the president’s Phoenix rally speech as “an off-script return to campaign form,” where Trump “pivoted away from remarks a day earlier in which he had solemnly called for unity.” That also doesn’t appear in the published version.

A Wall Street Journal spokeswoman pushed back in a statement to the Times on Wednesday.

“The Wall Street Journal has a clear separation between news and opinion. As always, the key priority is to focus reporting on facts and avoid opinion seeping into news coverage,” the spokeswoman said.

The Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of 21st Century Fox and Fox News. Murdoch reportedly speaks on a regular basis with the president and reportedly had dinner at the White House earlier this month.