As we already mentioned, today’s WSJ had a rather lengthy publisher’s note primarily geared towards convincing readers that Dow Jones’ coverage would continue to be fair and balanced—in spite of the fact the the company was now owned by an evil, Republican penny-pincher.

To this end, the WSJ had a couple of hokey-but-still-transparently-sinister quotes from Murdoch (saying that the last thing he would ever want to do was breach his readers’ trust—you know, because that would be “bad for business”) and revealed the standards—agreed to by News Corp. and the Bancrofts—modeled on the long-standing Dow Jones Code of Conduct, which include “Analyses represent the publications’ best independent judgments rather than their preferences, or those of their owner” and “There are no hidden agendas in any journalist undertakings.”

And while we’re suddenly convinced that we entirely misjudged poor Rupert, what we want to know is, are the staffers buying it? To find out, we went to the most fair and unbiased place we could think of: other newspapers.

“It meant more to be a Wall Street Journal reporter yesterday than it does tomorrow,” the anonymous staffer admits to the NYT. “I worked hard to get here, and I feel like I will always tell people that I was here before Murdoch. There will always be a before and an after.”

Ouch! But does Reporter Number Two agree?

“People are aghast that this could have happened,” a Journal reporter tells Walter Hamilton. “It’s a sickening realization to know that this really great iconic newspaper is [not only] no longer going to be independent, but is also going to be controlled by a man whose values are inimical to ours.”

To be honest, we’re not sure what the word “inimical” means, but we’re guessing it’s just fancy financial reporter-speak for “has an obvious right-wing political agenda, and really, really big jowls.”

Original post by Perez Hilton and software by Elliott Back