“There are growing indications that Mr Murdoch, a lifelong conservative, doesn’t just want to cover politics, he wants to play them as well,” David Carr, the late media critic, wrote in 2009, two years after Murdoch bought the paper.
Carr noted that Baker, as early as 2010, when he was deputy managing editor, was already seen as pushing the WSJ into “adopting a more conservative tone, and editing and headlining articles to reflect a chronic skepticism of the [Obama] administration”.
Murdoch has been known to use his publications to influence politics and business alike.