It is a sign of the changing media times we live in that Tuesday's Wall Street Journal features a hand-wringing mea culpa that Rupert Murdoch's papers more typically demand of the BBC. "The Journal was slower than it should have been at the outset to pursue the phone-hacking scandal story," it admitted. "We agree it could have done a better job with a recent story allowing Mr Murdoch to get his side of the story on the record without tougher questioning." Let's just call it a "minor mistake", shall we? The confessional... sorry, editorial said the WSJ's "focus, style and content" had changed since it was bought by News Corporation four years ago. But it denied there was a "pattern of wrongdoing" or a "culture of journalistic malpractice ... [that] shills for Rupert Murdoch or anybody else. That is not the newsroom we have observed over our four years." Going forward, the paper has set up an "independently maintained 'hotline' for complaints" about ethics or malpractice. Oh, to be able to listen in on that one, eh?
