From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

Last week, as we memorialized the passing of Washington Post publisher Catherine Graham,

another historic figure departed journalism's arena, Robert Bartley, who spent the better part of 30 years,

transforming the Wall Street Journal's editorial page into what is regarded as the prime mover of

conservative thought in America has retired. Bartley has passed the torch to the journal's

Washington columnist Paul Shugo, who joins us now. Welcome to the show.

Good to be with you. This is a tricky question to throw at you right off the bat, but why not?

The journal's editorial page is at the same time, probably the most read, and probably the most reviled in the country.

Let's face it, the editor of the National Review said, rather than making grand pronouncements,

the journal's willing to knock the teeth out of its opponents, it's a ferocious page.

I don't think, I wouldn't describe it as ferocious. I would say that we're not on the one hand,

on the other hand page. I think our style is, it can be pugnacious at times. But if our style is so ferocious,

I think that we must be doing something right because Howell Raines of the New York Times when he

was editorial page editor did seem to imitate some of the style of Bartley and what Bob Bartley

would like to call muzzle velocity for editorials.

But I think it's too much to say we're ferocious.

And you say the New York Times, or rather the New York Times under Howell Raines, made an

alteration in its pages. By that you mean it...

And stylistically, stylistically. I mean, he revved up the RPMs. He also adopted one other thing that I think was a Bartley innovation, which is the campaign.

That is, if you get an issue which you really are promoting, in Howell Raines' case, it has been campaign finance reform, you keep going back and you keep going back. We've done that with

supply-side economics, tax cutting. And specifically and probably overwhelmingly whitewater.

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