The Wall Street Journal is an influential international daily newspaper published in New York City, New York. For many years, it had the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, although it is currently second to USA Today. It is owned by Dow Jones & Company;.
Nicknamed The Journal, this newspaper primarily covers U.S. and international business and financial news and issues--in fact, the paper's name comes from Wall Street, the street in New York which is the heart of the business district. It has been printed continuously since July 8, 1889. The newspaper has won the Pulitzer Prize twenty-six times.
The Journal enjoys the reputation of being a generally reliable source of news. The position of the editorial opinion and op-ed sections is typically quite conservative, although former news editor Al Hunt has a weekly column in which he expresses views more or less diametrically opposed to those of the editorial board, and occasionally space will be given to a piece by a more liberal writer such as Arthur Schlesinger or Christopher Hitchens. The editorial page commonly publishes pieces by prominent U.S. and world leaders such as Russian president Vladimir Putin and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Recently the Journal started a free online sampling of its editorial page, OpinionJournal.com, found at the website of the same name; its centerpiece is a daily column by editor James Taranto, entitled Best of the Web Today, which editorializes (very conservatively) on politics and journalism.
