Is this the FOX News influence on the WSJ?

*****
http://online.wSportsJournalists.com/article/SB119542486806397254.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Putin Institutionalized
November 19, 2007

By now, Russian elections are so scripted and Putinism so institutionalized that the Kremlin hardly needs to stuff ballots to ensure its preferred outcome. In turn, the U.S. and European democracies can stop indulging any remaining fantasies about guiding Vladimir Putin's Russia toward the West and face up squarely to an adversarial and authoritarian Kremlin.
*****

Gaudy for a Wall Street Journal headline, isn't it? Is this a harbinger of things to come for the WSJ? Am I being too sensitive about the headline? Does Newscorp have anything to do with the management/editorial staff of the WSJ yet?

 

I think you are being too sensitive. PutinISM Institutionalized would have been better, but this - despite its (unintentional?) psych-punniness - isn't too bad.

Even if it was intentional, I don't think it's possible to see it as an example of creeping Fox-iness. Come back and complain when you've gathered ten over-the-top Foxy examples.

 

Write Paul Martin at The Wall Street Journal and ask why they chose that combination of words. He's the stylebook editor at the WSJ and runs the newspaper's style site (blog/newsletter), Style & Substance. It's a fascinating site ... the WSJ copy editors make plenty of boneheaded mistakes and many are pointed out there each month. I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up in the next issue. His e-mail is at the link below...

http://blogs.wSportsJournalists.com/styleandsubstance/