Wall Street Journal (News)

About Wall Street Journal (News)'s Bias Rating

Wall Street Journal (News) is featured on the AllSides Media Bias Chart™.

Wall Street Journal (News) is a news media source with an AllSides Media Bias Rating™ of Center.

Note: AllSides rates the media bias of The Wall Street Journal's editorial/opinion pages separately. This page refers to the media bias of Wall Street Journal's news section only.

What a "Center" Rating Means

Sources with an AllSides Media Bias Rating of Center either do not show much predictable media bias, display a balance of articles with left and right biases, or equally balance left and right perspectives.

Center doesn't mean better! A Center media bias rating does not necessarily mean a source is totally unbiased, neutral, perfectly reasonable, or credible, just as Left and Right don't necessarily mean extreme, wrong, unreasonable, or not credible. AllSides encourages people to read outlets across the political spectrum.

• Wall Street Journal Rated Lean Left in Aug. 2023 Blind Bias Survey; AllSides Keeps Center Rating Following Sept. 2023 Editorial Review
• Wall Street Journal Rated Center in June 2023 Independent Review
• Wall Street Journal Rated Center in July 2021 AllSides Blind Bias Survey
• Wall Street Journal Rated Center in 2013 AllSides Blind Bias Survey

Wall Street Journal Rated Lean Left in Aug. 2023 Blind Bias Survey; AllSides Keeps Center Rating Following Sept. 2023 Editorial Review

The Wall Street Journal was rated Lean Left (-2.76). A total of 792 people rated WSJ. AllSides conducted an Editorial Review and opted to keep WSJ's bias rating as Center (-0.2).

Respondents who rated their own bias as Left, Lean Left, Center, and Right rated WSJ as Lean Left; respondents with a Lean Right bias rated it Left. Republicans rated WSJ as Left; Democrats and Indpendents rated it Lean Left.

During the Editorial Review, a multipartisan AllSides panel of reviewers on the left, center, and right determined WSJ has a Center bias. While the team noted very slight instances of Lean Left bias, they were minor, and most pieces did not show bias. The panel theorized that the Blind Bias Survey results were due to the inclusion of content that did appear to Lean Left. Headlines from WSJ included in the blind survey included but were not limited to: Earth Just Had Its Hottest Month Ever. How Six Cities Are Coping, The Legal Assault on Corporate Diversity Efforts Has Begun, Senate Passes Defense Bill, Setting Up Fight Over Abortion, Transgender Care, and The Most Notable Passages in the DOJ’s Indictment of Trump. Blind Bias Surveys show respondents a small snapshot of content from an outlet in time; AllSides often couples surveys with Editorial Reviews, which allow a panel to see a wider swath of content and taken over a longer timeline.

The Editorial Review found very slight word choice bias but also much balance. Two pieces about immigration were seen as describing immigration fairly and in a balanced way, with both sides described or polarizing descriptors avoided; pieces about criminal cases against Donald Trump used the word "allegedly" generously or did not show bias. Examples of slight Lean Left bias included a piece about the German right-wing that was seen as leaning slightly left for tying conservative views to extremism and QAnon (however, a Lean Right reviewer noted the photos were fair and not biased); a piece about a floating border wall only provided one quote from lawmakers in favor of it; a piece about abortion laws used language calling limited abortion access a "threat," and thus set up a threat/protection dynamic that a Center reviewer stated "could easily be flipped to the other side, where the abortion is the threat and the ban is the protection."

Wall Street Journal Rated Center in June 2023 Independent Review

An independent review of Wall Street Journal's news articles by an AllSides bias reviewer in June 2023 affirmed AllSides' Center rating. 

Headlines and story choices showed o clear trends in bias. WSJ attributed all claims to a source and did not use analysis presented as fact, subjective qualifying adjectives, or other types of bias.

A sample of headlines reviewed included:

• Trump Campaigns On Under Legal Shadow
• The Russian Soldier Who Surrendered to a Ukrainian Drone
• Bud Light Loses Title as Top-Selling U.S. Beer
• Can Corporate America and the GOP Patch Things Up?
• Trump Allies Take Out Anger on FBI Headquarters Project

Wall Street Journal Rated Center in July 2021 AllSides Blind Bias Survey

In the July 2021 AllSides Blind Bias Survey, in which people across the political spectrum rated content from WSJ's news section without knowing the source, the average rating was Center.

On average, 1,195 people rated WSJ as Center. A majority of people who self-identified as having a Left, Lean Left, Center, or Lean Right bias rated WSJ as Center; a plurality of people with a Right biased rated it Center, with the second most common response for WSJ being Lean Right.

Wall Street Journal Rated Center in 2013 AllSides Blind Bias Survey

A 2013 AllSides Blind Bias Survey returned a Center bias rating for the Wall Street Journal. See more explanation of the 2013 blind bias survey results here.

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As of October 2023, people have voted on the AllSides Media Bias Rating for Wall Street Journal (News). On average, those who disagree with our rating think this source has a Center bias.

In late 2013 (Dec. 12, 2013), the majority of the AllSides community voted in agreement with the Center rating. As of May 15, 2016, over 4,000 votes from AllSides Community members showed the majority disagreed with the rating, but was evenly split on whether The Wall Street Journal news was Left or Right. The average of those votes was Center, with a raw score of 48.5 (with 50 representing perfect Center).

As of October 2023, AllSides has high confidence in our Center rating for Wall Street Journal (News). Two or more bias reviews have affirmed this rating or the source is transparent about bias.

Additional Information

The Wall Street Journal is an international, business-focused, daily newspaper based in New York City and the second-largest newspaper in the US by circulation. A division of News Corp and published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, the Journal is the most widely circulated newspaper in the United States. It has printed continuously since it was founded by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser on July 8, 1889. Daily editions of the newspaper are posted on its website, which also includes Home, World, U.S., Politics, Economy, Business, Tech, Market, Arts, Life, Real Estate and Opinion sections. The paper has won 39 Pulitzer Prizes. 

Political Bias of WSJ Audience

A 2014 Pew Research Center survey, Where Audiences Fit on the Political Spectrum, found the Wall Street Journal's audience is "roughly evenly distributed across the ideological spectrum," with 21% of consumers being mostly liberal, 24% being of mixed political persuasion, and 22% being mostly conservative.

Third Party Studies and Comments on WSJ Bias

In a 2005 academic study, Tim Groseclose, a former professor of political science at UCLA, developed a measure, the Slant Quotient (S.Q.), a number that shows how often a news outlet cites one or more of some 200 think tanks. The bigger the S.Q., the more liberal the news outlet. He found the Wall Street Journal is left of center, with a 55.1 SQ. For comparison, he found the most liberal newspaper to be the Detroit Free Press (S.Q. = 81.5) and the New York Times to be very liberal (67.3).  He found WSJ to be more liberal than NPR or The New York Times. In the full report published in the November 2005 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the author notes:

"Irvine and Kincaid [2001] note that “The Journal has had a long-standing separation between its conservative editorial pages and its liberal news pages.” Sperry [2002] notes that the news division of the Journal sometimes calls the editorial division “Nazis.” “Fact is,” Sperry writes, “the Journal’s news and editorial departments are as politically polarized as North and South Korea.”"

Some on the left, such as writers for Slate, have claimed the newspaper acquired a rightward slant after falling under the control of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp in 2007. Others believe the news section to be balanced — according to CNN in 2007, the Journal's "newsroom staff has a reputation for non-partisan reporting." 

A 2021 article in the Columbia Journalism Review said WSJ had "dug in its heels" during the Trump era by "adhering to old habits, and devising coverage that suits right-wing readers." According to the article, WSJ reporters "complain that editors modulate the tone of political stories and set limits on subject matter." 

The CJR article quoted a WSJ staffer, who said, "We cover race insofar as it’s not a comparison and it won’t offend our white readers," adding "We’ll write a story that says Latinos are buying more homes. But we won’t write a story saying sellers are more willing to sell to white buyers." However, Matt Murray, the then-editor-in-chief of the Journal, denied any "aggressive monitoring of political coverage."

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Owner: Dow Jones & Company (a division of News Corp.)

In 2007, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp bought the Wall Street Journal with the $5 billion purchase of its parent company, Dow Jones & Company. News Corp is the owner of hundreds of national and international publishing outlets including the New York Post and Fox News, many of which have a reputation for leaning right. 

Financing and ownership information last updated February 22, 2021. If you think this information is out of date or needs to be updated, please contact us.