• Slate, Monday, June 16, 2008 10:30 AM

Rupert Murdoch's oft-stated design for The Wall Street Journal is to knock The New York Times off its perch as the first newspaper the elites reach for each morning.

Around the beginning of the month, the Journal moved to the head of the daily newspaper line--not because of its political and international coverage--but because it was producing some great enterprise journalism: its series on Bear Stearns and a story on outsourced manufacturing returning to the U.S.

Maybe Robert Thomson, who added managing editor to his existing publisher title last month, has started to appreciate the newspaper's real strengths. Or maybe it's an accident or a trap set by Murdoch to lure unsuspecting readers. If the Journal continues on this course, a year's subscription will be the best deal a newshound can purchase.

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