A Wall Street Journal columnist said Joe Biden was part of Hunter’s business deal. Hours later, its news reporters said the opposite.

By Paul Farhi
10/23/2020, 2:36:29 p.m.

Readers of the Wall Street Journal may have felt a bit of whiplash on Thursday over a news story and an opinion column that presented sharply conflicting accounts of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s alleged role in one of his son’s business ventures.

The Journal column — hailed as a bombshell before the final presidential debate by Biden critics, including President Trump — asserted that Biden was involved in a deal arranged by his son Hunter with a Chinese energy conglomerate in 2017.

Columnist Kimberley Strassel relied on the account of Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Tony Bobulinski, who provided documents that “suggest Hunter was cashing in on the Biden name and that Joe Biden was involved.”

But a few hours after Strassel’s column was published, the Journal’s news side offered a much different take.

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Dueling accounts from the same publication about a major news story are rare. Also unusual: Opinion columnists typically don’t attempt to break news. Large, mainstream news organizations such as the Journal manage their news-reporting and opinion operations separately. The Journal’s news side is under editor in chief Matthew Murray; Paul A. Gigot is editor of its editorial page.

In the Journal’s case, there’s an ongoing civil war between its news staff and its opinion side, as well as a wider war among news organizations controlled by the family of media baron Rupert Murdoch.

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