The Wall Street Journal bows to the inevitable…

…and brings back the naked women:

Reversing the highly publicized and controversial change to its pages, The Wall Street Journal announced Friday that the daily newspaper will resume featuring nude photographs after a failed yearlong experiment with nudity-free issues. “While we remain committed to updating the paper for a contemporary audience, we’ve come to realize that tasteful nudity has always been part of what makes The Wall Street Journal so beloved by our readers,” said editor-in-chief Gerard Baker, adding that beginning with the following week’s Monday edition, the Journal’s signature pictorials of topless and fully naked women will return alongside its award-winning reporting, business-focused news coverage, and weekly columns from Peggy Noonan and Holman W. Jenkins Jr.

Although I’m not exactly sure what the joke is for the Onion, here.  After all, the WSJ clearly can operate without nude pictures*, while Playboy clearly cannot.  Which is kind of embarrassing for Playboy, given that they always took the position that people read their magazine for the articles. Maybe that’s the joke?

Moe Lane

*I don’t think that the WSJ is making a real profit, but then: what newspaper does, these days?

4 thoughts on “The Wall Street Journal bows to the inevitable…”

  1. The WSJ recently stepped in it and pissed off about 53 Million YouTube users by insulting the very popular PewDiePie, by accusing him of something he is not. They are making fun of Playboy while elbowing the WSJ in the gut for their nonsense.

    1. There’s also the added later of both organizations abandoning their core competencies to become something they’re not.
      .
      Some rare individual people *could* read Playboy for the articles, because the nudity allowed the magazine to pay a premium for content. (And the content helped rationalize “I’m not really buying it for the titillation” for their subscribers.)
      But without the nudity, the business model died. They couldn’t afford the content they used to provide, advertisers were less willing to buy ads with circulation crashing, etc.
      .
      Something similar is going on with the WSJ. It used to have a niche market–and sold to a much larger customer base, because people treasure their pretensions.
      But it abandoned that model, and became just another newspaper. In an age when newspapers are dying.

  2. I assume its a parody of those various tabloids that have experimented with cleaning up their act by removing the nekked ladies.

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