The Best Newspaper in the World

Every newspaper and magazine likes to make the claim that its politics don't affect its reporting- but truthfully, the Wall Street journal is the only major paper that can make that claim. There's a wall between the news section and the editorial sections of the paper, and that wall reflects both the paper's policy and the demands of its readers.

The WSJ has always been the paper where America's (and the world's) financial community has looked firt for news. When you're risking your own money, you don't want stories that stroke your personal opinions- you want unbiased facts. And that's what the WSJ has delivered for decades. Politics are kept to the Op-Ed pages.

I started reading the WSJ back in grad school, when a friend who taught economics required it of all his students. It's now nearly 30 years later and I'm still a regular subscriber. In that time I've subscribed to and dropped the New York Times and various local papers, but the WSJ has been the one paper I've read continuously.

Best Newspaper in the US

Every newspaper has a political orientation of some sort, and the WSJ is no exception; what differentiates the WSJ from every other mahjor newspaper in America is that it has a wall between News and Editorial sections. There's probably no other paper in the world whose news reporting is as free of politics, and that's part of what makes it such a great source of unbiased news and information.

The Op-Ed pages are also a treasure, particularly if you do subscribe to the Journal's libertarian-Republican point of view. And even if you don't it's always worth learning what the other side says. Leftists are well represented in the person of Al Hunt, whose weekly commentary keeps the reader abreast of what's current in Democratic circles. Writers from all sides are regularly represented in guest columns, too; last week's paper had an essay by Lech Walesa on the role Ronald Reagan played in supporting Solidarity and the Pope in the early days of their struggle againt the Polish government.

I've begun almost every weekday of the past twenty years with a cup of coffee and my copy of the WSJ. I can't imagine changing.

Newspaper is great, Synpase Services is not!

I found that the newspaper was exactly what my previous revieweres had described, a journal of world events which have a potential impact on the Wall Street stocks, bonds and funds. Don't expect a complete news coverage but coverage of events relevant to the business world. All in all I am very happy with the quality of reporting.

What I am not happy with is the service provided by Synapse Services. Their local contractor in the South Bay Area, California did not deliver the journal on July 2nd and July 6th, 2004. When I called to ask about this, Synpase was not able to provide me with any useful information, and was not able to tell me if the newspaper was not delivered or was stolen instead. They did not make any effort to get to the bottom of the issue but instead advised me to wait for another day to see if service resumes.