Wall Street Journal Opinion Editor ‘Phased Out’ After Disagreements About Trump

Stories about the Trump administration appear to have led to a major shakeup at one of America’s national newspapers. According to The Atlantic, Mark Lasswell, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial features editor, was “in effect phased out over a period of months from the paper” after butting heads with editorial page director Paul Gigot over various pieces about President Donald Trump.

One “source close to Lasswell” is telling The Atlantic that the issues between the two editors reached a breaking point when Gigot vetoed pieces about Trump’s purported association with organized crime. Subsequently, Lasswell went on a “book leave” through the end of the election cycle, only for Gigot to go radio silent for weeks after his return before firing him by phone. Lasswell was replaced by the pro-Trump James Taranto.

Gigot issued the following statement:

We don’t talk about internal personnel or editorial deliberations, but suffice to say your information is false in multiple respects. We appreciate Mark Lasswell’s contributions to the Journal and wish him well. The Journal editorial page’s coverage of Donald Trump speaks for itself, including numerous op-eds from outside contributors and staff editorials pro and con throughout the campaign and now as President. That coverage will continue.

This comes on the heels of stories at BuzzFeed News and Politico reporting that Journal staffers have been told not to refer to the countries named in Trump’s travel/refugee ban as “majority Muslim” out of concern that it’s an overly “loaded” phrase.

Updated 1:48 p.m. ET: Both The Huffington Post and Politico are reporting that Gerard Baker, WSJ’s editor in chief, held a 30 minute “staff town hall” on Monday where he defended the paper’s coverage of Trump. Specifically, he made a point of saying that it would be “fake news” to say they haven’t been hard enough on the new president.

“Try to cut out some of the noise, some of the panic,” he said.  “[There is] a lot of nonsense appearing in the media about how unreliable our reporting is, that we’re being soft on Donald Trump. I have an obligation to respond to that and point out that I think that is completely unfair.” He added that the staff should not “let anybody get away with saying our reporting of Donald Trump has been soft” while arguing that the paper is not supposed to be “oppositional.”

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